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ORIGINS AND FAITH 


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"^ORIGINS AND FAITH 

An Essay of Reconciliation 


BY 

JOSEPH COMPTON-RICKETT ^ 

Author of “ The Christ that is to be^" 

“ The Quickening of Caliban^' etc. 



New York Chicago Toronto 

Fleming H. Revell Company 

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PREFACE 

Anyone who comes into frequent contact with 
the religious mind of the day must recognise the 
difficulties lying behind that working Faith which 
suffices for most of us. It is not that there is an 
active opposition to religion; it is that Christianity 
has ceased to provide for many a sufficient answer 
to the insurgent challenges of modern thought. Al- 
though much splendid work has been done by way 
of reconciliation, the note has been too apologetic, 
the vindication too partial. The present need is to 
find a reasonable basis for belief which shall bring 
into practical agreement the religious and scientific 
systems, preserving at the same time the essential 
truth of great traditions. It would indeed be a satis- 
faction to realise that I have made some contribu- 
tion to this end. 

I have intentionally avoided loading the book with 
references and footnotes, so that it may be read 
J more simply and usefully. 

I acknowledge gratefully the assistance rendered 
by my friend, the Rev. F. A. Russell, of the King’s 
Weigh House Church, London, in the work of re- 
vising for the press. My son. Dr. Arthur Compton- 
Rickett, has given me similar help. 

J. Compton-Rickett. 


Lancaster Gate, W. 


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CONTENTS 


I. The Problem 


The present position 


. 


PAGE 

14 

Christianity in simplest terms . 

. 



16 

The Universe according to Modern Science 



17 

The original impulse . 




19 

The Unknowable 




19 

The Agnostic Philosophy . 




21 

The Pantheistic explanation 




22 

Is a Concordat possible? . 




23 

Christianity as ethics . 




23 

Personality and limitation . 




24 

II. At the Back of 

THE Beginnings 


Frontiers of knowledge 




29 

Out of the void .... 




30 

The secret of eternal motion . 




30 

The Peace of God 




31 

The entrance of Evil . 




32 

The nature of Evil . 




S3 

Nature non-moral 




36 

The patience of the Workman . 




38 

A theory of Evil .... 




39 

Evil not Goodness disguised 




42 

First Cause has no claim upon affection . 



43 

III. A Religion 

The gospel of Naturalism . 

OF Humanity 


• 47 

Patriotism — a religion 

. 

. 

. 

, 48 

The Social instinct 

. 

. 


. 49 

The idealism of Ethics 

. , 

, 

, , 

51 


7 


8 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 


Intellectuality and morality not concurrent . . . 52 

Naturalism and Determinism 54 

Naturalism becomes irrational 56 

The curve of life 56 

Idealism demands religion 58 


IV. The Faith before the Faith 

A common Faith 

Pluralism and Monotheism 

The friend unseen 

The multi-consciousness of God .... 

The area of Providence 

Spiritual endowment 

V. The Power of God in Prayer 

Objections to prayer 

The instinct of prayer 

Prayer as a fighting force 

The experience of prayer 

Prayer an aid to sincerity'^ 

Mechanical prayer . . . . 

The real answer to prayer 

Congregational prayer 

Meditation 

VI. Second Life o| Immortality 

Second life and immortality contrasted . 

Spiritualism 

Consciousness and individuality .... 

Conditions of second life 

Argument from moral government .... 
Protestantism and probation 

VII. Redemption through Atonement 

Jewish ritual and Christian Faith .... 
ChrisPs doctrine of the blood 


63 

63 

65 

67 

69 

70 


75 

76 

77 

78 

79 

80 
81 
82 
84 


89 

90 

93 

94 

98 

99 


105 

106 


CONTENTS 


9 


PAGE 

The older evangelical doctrines 108 

Gospels and Epistles contrasted 108 

A cosmic view of Redemption . . . . . .110 

Distrust of the world — a half truth . . . . .118 

Christ upon His Cross 114 

VIII. Inspired Scriptures 

Growth of authority lig 

The popular verdict of the Canon 122 

Relation of the Old Testament to Christianity . . .128 

The elect people 125 

Canonicity a question of survival . . . . .126 

Early Church and New Testament Canon . . . 127 

Discriminating use of Scriptures 129 

Need for a revised Canon 180 

Exaggerated difficulties of Scripture . . . .188 

Theological relation of Old and New Testaments . .184 

The value of myths 185 

Spiritual impulse to Evolution 186 

IX. Jesus to His Contemporaries 

Christ continuously discussed 14S 

Palestine a world center 144 

Messianic ideal 146 

The mistress of the world 148 

The baptism of John 150 

Conflicting ideal of Jesus 150 

Judgment of patriotic Pharisee 152 

X. Jesus and the Miraculous 

Are miracles possible.^ Igg 

Can morals and miracles be separated . . . -164 

Significance of Resurrection 165 

Witness of St. Paul 157 

Jesus’ estimate of miracles 159 


10 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 

The zone of miracles 170 

Illusion and deception 172 

XI. Jesus to Himself 

Gro's^h of the divine consciousness 177 

The discipline of delay 178 

The crisis of baptism 180 

Literary style of Jesus 182 

Theories of Temptation 183 

Suggested form of Temptation 185 

The fateful hour 189 

The discipleship igo 

Person greater than message ipi 

XII. Jesus to the World 

Christ and the Creeds 195 

Christ’s doctrine of Sonship 196 

The Apostles and sacrifice 198 

Influence of Alexandria 199 

Varying testimony to Person of Jesus . . . .200 

Broader interpretation of the Creeds . . . .201 

Miracle of Christ’s Personality 201 

Christ limits Himself to His Church .... 203 

Miracle of the Nativity 204 

XIII. Jesus Christ in His Church. 

Brevity of ministry 209 

Primacy of Peter 211 

St. Paul’s theory of the Church 213 

The living Presence .216 

Duty of the Church to children 220 

Socialism and the Church 221 


CONTENTS 


11 


XIV. The Missionary Work op the Church 


PAGE 

The first missionary ideal .231 

Modern missions 233 

The claims of the Asiatic 235 

Two aspects of mission work 236 

Should the missionary re-state Christianity . . . 238 

The work of the future 241 

XV. Christianity in the Social Order 

The Church and the world 245 

Christianity and war 246 

Dangers of arbitration 248 

The City of God 248 

Economic warfare 249 

Can the Church intervene? 253 

What can be done? 258 


XVI. Some Criticisms and a Conclusion 








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THE PROBLEM 

O NCE shift the centre of gravity in the con- 
sciousness of a nation, or in the thought of 
an individual, and far-reaching consequences 
will follow. To superficial observation nothing may 
have been changed; the old life apparently is fiow- 
ing in its accustomed channels. But the ideal is cer- 
tain to make its own history. The Jew and the 
Puritan have both graven their story deeply on their 
respective countries through the mystic fervour of 
their faiths. For Religion is at once unifying and 
impulsive to a national life. It is worth many army 
corps. How far will the future of the British peo- 
ples be affected by the exchange of ideals in process 
under our very eyes? For we are witnessing at 
present a strong reaction from the familiar forms 
of rehgion. To the upper classes an emotional 
faith means the fiag and the country; to the rest 
of the nation, comfort, a common satisfaction with 
life. Our teachers are perplexed, and our churches, 
confused or indifferent, are failing in numbers. 
The indifference, however, is more affected than 
real. The old landmarks are disappearing; the sea 
has already fiooded many of the famihar fields. We 
hear the moan of the waters, a sobbing uncertainty, 
where formerly there was firm ground, a foothold 
for belief. Much more is threatened, and our apol- 
13 


14 


ORIGINS AND FAITH 


ogists have abandoned those ancient earthworks 
which protected vulnerable places, and are disput- 
ing amongst themselves how much more should 
voluntarily be surrendered to the ever-advancing 
pressure of an insistent criticism. 

How do we stand to-day? Having broken with 
the traditional teaching, we are driven to dispense 
The present with the old f ormul[E. The battles 
Position. fought during the middle of the 
past century are as much out of date as the Wars of 
the Roses. New fields of contest have been forced 
upon us; new weapons have to be employed. The 
armouries which furnished us for the old contests 
are now little better than theological museums. 
Men and women no longer go through fife tor- 
mented by the dread that they have committed the 
unpardonable sin against the Holy Ghost. Like 
the early Hellenist disciples, they have not so much 
as heard whether there be any Holy Ghost. Are 
we, however, called upon to make a rag fair of our 
theological clothing and conventions ? Attenuation 
of belief is not the same thing as reformation. A 
science multiplies as it proceeds from its root to its 
branches. Theology is bound to follow in the same 
course. Retreat will not deliver it from having to 
reconsider its first principles. It is a case in which 
“ the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence ” and 
the violent must take it by force. Christianity has 
fallen dumb before the mysteries of life. It is not 
enough to mutter the old comfortable formulse, 
that God is too wise to err, too good to be unkind. 
We must know more than this. 

We cannot expect the Churches to be refilled if 


THE PROBLEM 


15 


our worship be addressed to a Deity about Whose 
personality we have doubt ; or to One Who governs 
the world by fixed laws and general benevolence. 
The intelligent teacher is affected by the tacit de- 
mands of the intelligent hearer. The scientific 
training of to-day compels a man to justify his pro- 
fessional knowledge. No wonder that he endeav- 
ours to apply the same method to Religion. The 
meditations of a fairly-cultured preacher about the 
hopeful possibilities of the life beyond will not 
claim the interested attention of his audience. In 
all directions churches are marking time, waiting 
for a restatement of the Faith in an atmosphere of 
modernity, but finding that eveiy such attempt so 
far has diminished the volume of the teaching, and 
weakened its practical utility. 

The position of the Christian teacher to-day is 
not an easy one. He finds that Science, insolent 
with good feeding, disdains to give him help. He 
has received his theology much in the way that we 
all accept the fundamental truths of a science. 
He presumes a general acquaintance with those 
arguments which have hitherto served to buttress 
his creed. He assumes that the generations of 
experts who have built up the Christian theology are 
sufficient for its support. If there are ominous 
signs of settlement in the building, he will leave the 
work of shoring up to the scholar. But an age 
which has produced so many theological experts has 
failed to secure unanimity amongst them, and the 
conscientious teacher is therefore compelled to be- 
come a critic and a judge sorely against his own 
wish. The prevaihng atmosphere of Scepticism is 


16 


ORIGINS AND FAITH 


around him. Whatever judgment he propounds 
can only be upon a balance of probability, and 
therefore must prove but a temporary resting-place 
for his own faith, and for his public teaching. He 
cannot be expected to go to the stake on behalf of 
such provisional truth. Martyrdom would appear 
ridiculous if after consummation it might be shown 
that the persecutor was really nearer the truth than 
the one who had suffered. 

In simplest terms, let us consider the teaching of 
Christianity as contrasted with those philosophical 

Christianity in systems which Confront it as 

simplest terms, competitors and alternatives. If 
neither Christianity nor the other competing phi- 
losophies offer a satisfactory solution of the phe- 
nomena of human existence, it is possible that a 
closer comparison of all may contribute some better 
interpretation. 

Christianity adopted the Hebrew authorities as 
to the beginnings of things, and assumed an al- 
mighty Creator and moral Ruler of the Universe, 
immanent in His creation by way of operation, and 
transcending it as a self-conscious Power. This 
Faith explained that the world was originally cre- 
ated for goodness, but that Sin entered and per- 
verted the purpose of the Creator. In order to 
save man from the consequences of Sin, the Son of 
God, the eternal Word, the second person of the 
triune Godhead, appeared upon earth as Jesus of 
Nazareth. After three years of public ministry 
Jesus was crucified by the Roman Governor of 
Judaea, rose from the dead on the third daj^ ap- 
peared to His disciples on many occasions, and was 


THE PROBLEM 


17 


visibly received into the skies. He ever lives at 
the right hand of His Father, making intercession 
for men, comforting them with His presence and 
restoring them to God. He committed His gospel 
to a society called the Church, which He promised to 
teach, and therein to dwell. He appointed certain 
ceremonies as sacraments, symbols, or channels of 
grace. He promised to return, either in vision or 
in bodily form, and has prepared a place in heaven 
for all those faithful to Him. 

On the other hand, we are assured by modern 
Science that the world was not originally made in 
a better condition than at present, universe 

but that it has been the scene of according to 
constant development, through modem Science, 
long ages, both before and since the arrival of 
man. One type of life has been evolved from 
another by laws whose operations can still be found 
in the world to-day. Instead of an ideal condi- 
tion from which man, through his own folly, has 
fallen, the human being has been rising from lower 
types of existence to higher. Particularly during 
the time of his developing consciousness has he 
availed himself of natural law to improve and ex- 
tend his own knowledge and powers. These laws, 
the survival of the fittest, adaptation to environ- 
ment, sexual preference, are, in the opinion of one 
school, sufficient to account for the introduction 
of an intelligent and governing race into a world 
of sentient hfe. This school argues that nothing 
has happened on this planet differing, except in 
detail, from what has occurred in other parts of 
the universe, and that the birth of a world and 


18 


ORIGINS AND FAITH 


the cry of a new-born babe belong to one and the 
same organised and inter-related system of bfe. 
To these interpreters the Universe is no longer the 
mystery that it was to our forefathers of even a 
century ago. The immense distance, the millions 
of years, are after all measurable and compre- 
hensible. The groups of stars and nebular systems 
follow ordained courses across the heavens. They 
have been identified, called by their names, and 
the area in which they move, however stupendous, 
is consequently limited. Beyond, there is an 
unfathomable darkness in which no stars are 
revealed. 

The genesis of each system has been demon- 
strated. Its first condition is that of a gaseous 
cloud. In that cloud he sleeping all form, colour, 
and hfe, as we understand them. It is composed 
of minute atoms perpetually in motion. There is a 
mutual attraction between the atoms which tends 
to draw them into a nucleus. This original energy, 
or kinetic motion, in turn creates thermal motion, 
or heat, a source of light and further movement. 
From this revolving centre are thrown off, in the 
process of coohng and contracting, globular masses, 
which in their turn shrink to a less fluid condition, 
and become attendant planets of the parent body. 
This divisive force sometimes continues until the 
planet in its turn sets free smaller masses which 
accompany it in its orbit, a little court of moons or 
firefly satellites. The whole system with its central 
sun is moving on its own account through space. 
At a certain point in the cooling of the globe 
individualised life appears, and, taking the earth as 


THE PROBLEM 


19 


an example, may be developed to a remarkable 
degree. The original heat of these bodies tends to 
dissipate in space. The greater part of the heat of 
the sun is diffused recklessly. Only a little of it 
serves to nurture the planets that respond to 
parental attraction. Ultimately this heat will 
become exhausted, and the whole solar system must 
then shrivel into dead cinders, a funeral procession 
rolhng through space, unless by chance contact 
with some live system they be awakened to renewed 
activity. One theory reports the final fate of the 
whole universe to be a reduction to dumb nothing- 
ness, a cemetery of dead worlds. Another suggests 
with more probabihty that the lost heat of one 
system is bound to be reahsed elsewhere, and that 
death and life are always progressing concurrently 
in different parts of the wide heavens. 

There still remains the question : What is at the 
back of the beginnings? How came motion into 
being? Who gave the mighty foot- The Original 
ball the first kick-off? Or if there impulse, 
be no first or last, by what power is this variety 
of life evolved and maintained? The knowable is 
that which our senses report, our consciousness re- 
marks, and our reason assumes as the starting- 
ground for all deduction and conclusion. But we 
know that our senses are limited, and that much 
lies beyond their cognisance. We cannot be sure 
that a thing exists in reality as it appears to us. 
We are necessarily restricted to phenomena, and 

are therefore lustified in assuming 

, , . , . 1 1 • 1 1 The Unknowable, 

something lying behind these phe- 
nomena to which we must attach the name of the 


20 


ORIGINS AND FAITH 


Unknowable. First cause can only be the entrance 
into the finite and comprehensible of that which 
previously belonged to the infinite and incompre- 
hensible. Therefore, whether we begin with the 
Christian or with the scientific theory of life, we 
must admit that the infinite lies beyond both. The 
moment we attempt to define we limit. Christianity 
brings out of that infinite a Being to Whom it 
attributes quality, form, expression, or He could not 
be a personal God. It proposes to ascribe to Him 
eternity and infinity; but it finds that these are 
simply names which do not add to knowledge, and 
it is therefore compelled to fall back upon homelier 
illustrations in order to embody the idea of a 
supreme Being of purity, love, and goodness. The 
more homely the illustration becomes the closer it 
draws us to Him, the deeper our love for Him. 
Christianity therefore presents for our worship a 
Being interpreted to us by the terms of human 
relationship, but it insists that tliis Being, all- 
mse, all-good, all-powerful, is also infinite and 
eternal, the primal cause behind all things. In so 
doing, Christianity commits itself to an admission 
that from this First Cause both Good and Evil must 
have come. Yet it dare not assign to God the 
activities of Evil. It therefore retires upon a theory 
that God permits Evil for some good and temporary 
purpose unknown to us. This explanation, how- 
ever, will fail under closer examination, as we shall 
show later on. We may here interpolate: Why 
are we called upon to worship a First Cause? To 
whom should we address that worship? It is 
unknowable. It cannot consist of one single 


THE PROBLEM 


21 


personality. For where there is no circumference 
there cannot be a centre. Personality, as we 
understand the term, must always mean a separa- 
tion of a part from the whole. If we offer worship 
to the unknowable First Cause we are bound to 
recognise both Good and Evil in Him, and our 
reverence therefore ceases to have moral value. 
So we may conclude that this personal Deity, 
gracious and lovable, must be a product of that First 
Cause, and not coincident with it. We therefore 
claim from Christianity the admission of the 
Unknowable lying behind its doctrine of God. We 
find in other faiths the same admission, either 
stated or imphed; “ the nameless That ” underlying 
the Brahminic system of deities, the Moira at the 
back of the Greek theogony. 

The Agnostic philosophy declines to accept this 
personal idea. The Spencerian section of it indeed 
admits the possibility of direction. The Agnostic 
of sympathetic assistance in devel- Philosophy, 
opment along the lines of law, but, taking the phe- 
nomena of the world for what they are worth, that 
section refuses to affirm that such a Deity, whether 
uni-personal or multi-personal, can be regarded as 
a moral being. It would report Him as true to 
His purposes, hut non-moral as to the conditions 
under which those purposes are effected. He is 
careful of mankind, so far as the type is concerned, 
possibly of an individual here and there, but He has 
nothing to do with the weak and down-trodden. 
As He is only known to Science through the 
phenomena of nature, it can merely recognise in 
Him such qualities as belong to the world through 


22 


ORIGINS AND FAITH 


which He manifests Himself. But this admission 
of the Spencerian school is only a guarded thought, 
and its definite conclusions resolve themselves into 
a theory of force behind phenomena of whose nature 
we are ignorant, and which can only be referred 
to the sphere of the Unknowable. The characteris- 
tic of this system is that it takes the phenomena of 
the world as it finds them, reduces their motions to 
intelligible order, and declines to advance a step 
beyond scientific demonstration. 

A third interpretation of natural phenomena is 
the presence of an all-pervading spirit in the uni- 

The Pantheistic verse, and coincident with it. It 
explanation. refuses to assume any personality 
of that spirit other than is expressed through a par- 
tial intelligence of wliich man is the one instance 
really known to us. All evolutionary movement, 
development, and power are due to the manifesta- 
tion in a higher degree of this spirit blindly seeldng 
to express itself more fully in the universe. In 
this way the Pantheist anticipates the triumph of 
Good, the abolition of pain and wrong. Only by 
means of suffering can the universe attain to per- 
fection. But as this system also implies the theory 
of infinite extension in space and time beyond the 
limits of our universe it falls by its very nature 
within the sphere of the Unknowable. It shares 
also with the Agnostic and Spencerian theory in 
the frank admission that such a spiritual Being 
or force must be non-moral, because it condones 
sin as a by-product in its evolutionary process. We 
have, therefore, one denominator common to all 
three systems : Christian, Agnostic, and Pantheistic 


THE PROBLEM 


2S 


— the Unknowable, ever shrouded from human in- 
telligence, but from which issue the beginnings of 
things. 

No efforts to re-state Christianity in the terms 
of modern thought have proved to be satisfactory. 
Attempts have been made to effect is a Concordat 
a compromise by modifying Chris- possible ? 
tianity in deference to scientific conclusions, but 
the compromise has been confined to one side. 
Philosophy has conceded nothing. When the 
Christian demands to know whether we could 
imagine a supreme goodness if our ideal were not 
capable of realisation, the scientist points to the 
evil, pain, and misery of the world, and enquires 
whether these are consistent with a conception of 
an all-powerful personal Goodness. 

Finding a doctrinal concordat to be impossible, 
the reconcilers of Religion and Science are driven 
to propound an ethical system from Christianity as 
which the supernatural and the mi- Ethics, 
raculous are altogether eliminated. Men have lost 
their grip of theology. It has ceased to be real 
to them. The growth of Christian Socialism is 
largely due to the fact that it is a live problem. 
This is, however, a proposal to reduce Christianity 
from a cosmic mystery to an earthly betterment, 
and to leave the riddle of life unsolved. It pro- 
poses to introduce equality of distribution with 
grace before meat. But this is to exchange a 
theology for a sociology. Such is not the 
secret of that Faith before which the Paganism 
of Northern Europe prostrated itself, and to which 
the Hellenic philosophies became pliant. It was 


24 > 


ORIGINS AND FAITH 


only a virile faith which could have appealed to 
energetic and progressive races. It never accepted 
defeat, for it always stirred with new hfe on the 
third day after a crucifixion. It was perpetually 
rising again, “ spoiling principalities and powers, 
and making a show of them openly.” It was ready 
to lose its life in order to find it. And if it 
sometimes hurried through the world for the sake 
of the journey’s end — like we moderns, who forget 
the landscape in the motor rush — ^it was for ever 
reaching forward to a hope beyond, a consolation 
and a glory yet to come. 

We therefore arrive at the conclusion that a 
personal God — by which term we include a Being 

Personality and of Supreme Goodness^ — cannot be 
limitation. absolutely powerful. Nor can He 
be identified with the greater universe beyond us. 
If, however, we adopt the view that the God of 
our universe, though apparently all-powerful in 
relation to our humanity, has yet limitations of 
existence imposed upon Him, we secure His moral 
ascendency through diminishing His responsibihty. 
As He is a great Outcome of First Cause, but not 
that Cause in Himself, we must attribute not to 
Him, but to other sources in the Unknowable, the 
presence in the universe of that Evil which conflicts 
with His benevolence and runs counter to His 
goodness. We shall endeavour to urge this theory 
as a solvent to certain difficulties confronting Chris- 
tianity. Assuming, therefore, such a divine Being, 
whence came He, and under what conditions are 
we related to Him? 

In applying these principles to religious ideas 


THE PROBLEM 


25 


before we attempt to construe them in Christianity, 
we are arrested for a moment in face of the mystery 
of all beginnings, and that mystery of mysteries — 
the evolution of a personal God. And at this point 
we are challenged to do without Him, to substitute 
for this divine relationship the gospel of Natural- 
ism, a religion of humanity, which declines all spirit- 
ual phenomena. If it can be proved that this will 
neither satisfy the emotions, nor explain the diffi- 
culties which beset the intellect, we have next 
to ascertain how far we can discover in human 
experience a natural religion common to all time 
and race. For it is certain that Christianity cannot 
exist apart from antecedent religious ideas of world- 
wide application; and these — second life, prayer, 
a redemptive power in human experience — concern 
humanity as a whole. If the theory we are attempt- 
ing to establish can give new significance to these, 
we shall be better fitted to deal with the questions 
of the miraculous and with the revelation of God 
through prophetic inspiration. And if we interpret 
the person and teaching of Jesus the Lord under 
the same principles we shall follow more clearly 
His influence through the Church into the world, 
modifying the political conditions of the State and 
fulfilling the most ancient faiths in the terms of 
His own Real Presence. 



AT THE BACK OF THE BEGINNINGS 




II 


AT THE BACK OF THE BEGINNINGS 

C HRISTIANITY looks for a further ex- 
planation to a revelation to come. Science 
anticipates a development of knowledge, 
but never expects to escape from the undetermined. 
She places man, a mere speck in the infinity of 
space, between an immeasurable past and an im- 
measurable future. She dechneS Frontiers of 
to search for an intelligible Cause in Knowledge, 
all causation, and has no satisfactory interpretation 
of the conflict between Good and Evil. But we 
must not regard the Unknowable as unworthy of 
curiosity or exploration. Sea and land are not 
constant quantities, but are continually in process 
of adjustment. There are ever extending penin- 
sulas of enquiry into that vast ocean. The things 
that we formerly assumed to be certainties may 
have to be surrendered to the Unknowable, and 
fresh acquisitions of knowledge rise like dim shapes 
out of the night to grow into greater distinctness. 
Existing impressions of time and space prevent our 
comprehension of infinitude and eternity, but this 
incapacity does not preclude our adventurous quest 
into the Unknown. 

If we assume the appearance of a creative Being 
of perfect hohness and goodness — God blessed for 
evermore — we must also assume that He emerged 
29 


30 


ORIGINS AND FAITH 


from that antecedent totality in which exist the 
beginnings of all life. In entering time and space 
as a personal existence He becomes finite and lim- 
ited. Such an evolution of God involves dissocia- 
tion from aU imperfection, a separation from any- 
thing which, under the primal conditions of the 
Unknowable, may have shared existence with evil. 

Out of the void appears this vast Personality. 
How He came we know not. With what sublimity 

... of struggle He separated Himself 

Out of the Void. „ . 

from the antecedents, one or many, 

we have no record, and cannot expect to have. It 
may be that after the lightnings, the thunderings, 
and the trumpet sounds, which typified the stmggle, 
it was a still small voice that proclaimed the advent 
of the Maker of our universe. He came to work 
within the broad arena of His own future cosmos; 
but although He Himself was perfect in goodness 
and had cast back the assaults of Evil, He could not 
secure the boundaries of His own sphere of action 
from the intrusion of other influences out of the 
Unknowable. The material upon which He works 
is part of that primal mass, the embryo of all 
energy, pliant to His dominant will and idea, but 
bound by inherent laws characteristic of it. 

Everlasting motion is the last word of physical 
science. Break up matter into its constituent 
The Secret of atoms, and within each atom there 
Eternal motion. a Still Smaller unit, a whirling 
electron. Change, progression, retrogression, the 
dance of life and of death proceed. There is no 
rest, no halting place, either in the clash of atoms 
or in the march of worlds. Even when life leaves 


AT THE BACK OF THE BEGINNINGS 31 


an individual organism it is immediately crowded 
with the busy housebreakers, who hack to pieces the 
waste material in order that it may be worked up 
elsewhere. Whence comes this perpetual motion? 
Is that activity due to a continual struggle between 
the forces of cosmos and of chaos? For planets 
flung from the parent sun continue to rotate, and 
that peace which passeth all understanding is not 
an arrest of power but a co-ordination of its forces. 
So that we dare not even attribute immobility to 
God, as if it were a characteristic of Goodness. 
For Goodness tends to ordered production of peace 
through a regular distribution of motion. Har- 
mony is evoked to replace clashing wills and dis- 
orderly efforts. A bird is said to be sleeping on 
the air when the vibrations of its wings are too 
minute to be detected. The motion of a child’s 
spinning-top is so rapid as not to be noticed by the 
eye when the hum dies into silence. Travellers in 
a balloon may imagine that they are stationary, 
when a piece of paper would show them that they 
are either rapidly ascending or descending. 

God dwells at peace with Himself and with His 
universe because He foresees His final victory in 
the midst of present conflict. Like The Peace 

His Son, He sees of the travail of of God. 

His soul and is satisfied. Like His Son, He is 
touched with the feeling of our infirmities. Himself 
the Captain of our salvation, made perfect through 
His own suffering. If He Himself has ascended to 
the great heights of His own Being through His 
divine experience. He can have compassion on the 
ignorant and on those who are out of the way. For if 


ORIGINS AND FAITH 


Evil has accompanied Him into this world it must 
have been always the enemy of a supreme develop- 
ment of Goodness, whether in the antecedent experi- 
ence of God Himself or in the cosmos He was bring- 
ing into being. Better than anyone He must know 
the cost of righteousness. Better than anyone He 
must understand the pain and struggle of His crea- 
tures. For He has already engaged in the con- 
flict and shared in the pain. It is only reasonable 
to suppose that He has brought into being a host 
of intelligences to co-operate with Him in the work 
of His worlds. So that at every new development 
“ the morning stars sang together and the sons of 
God shouted for joy.” 

Every suggestion of common sense and of anal- 
ogy compels us to recognise our own subordination 
and comparative insignificance in the scheme of 
Nature. Far up in the scale of being, there must 
certainly be intelligences possessing a range of hfe 
yet denied to us. On the great cosmic staircase 
there are ever messengers ascending or descending. 
There is nothing incredible in supposing that some 
of these intelligent beings, seduced from their 
proper allegiance, have become rebels to the su- 
preme Will. Here they are cold and indifferent; 

The Entrance of there, openly defiant. Why then 
Evil. has He not destroyed the creatures 
called into existence by His own power and lending 
themselves to the common foe? As in the child’s 
question. Why does not God kill the devil? But 
if there be original and persistent Evil abroad in 
the Universe, to destroy it in one place would not 
prevent its manifestations in others. Evil known 


AT THE BACK OF THE BEGINNINGS 33 


and localised is easier to treat than elusive and 
ranging at large. And so we hear of restraints, of 
chains and of prisons, of shutting up in hells. 

It is necessary to define the character of Evil 
before we can discuss the discovery of its source. 
Is it true that Evil is only the shadow of Goodness, 
a vacuum created by the absence of moral activity, 
a condition incident to development? Is it an 
interruption of sunlight, or a projection of dark- 
ness? If it be imphed in all progress, then we must 
argue that a possible fall attaches to every daring 
climb. Or can we pack it away into a formula, and 
claim that Evil is simply selfishness, the desire of 
the individual to benefit himself at the expense of 
the community? There is a certain The Nature of 
truth in this theory. The begin- 
nings of Evil, gray and indistinct before they 
deepen into blackness, favour it. In warfare 
an advancing army may find that its road is 
barred by an enemy which has thrown itself 
along the- fine of progression. But no general 
will be deceived by such obstructive tactics. He 
is well aware that if his own advance be dis- 
continued his opponent will follow the retiring 
forces, occupying the ground surrendered, and 
pushing home a counter attack. Incidentally, we 
admit Evil to be a denial of Goodness; but human 
experience knows full well that it is much more 
than a mere negation. There are aspects in which 
Evil may be regarded as relative. One man’s meat 
may be another man’s poison. The infective 
bacillus which destroys the life of one individual 
may spare another. There are cases in which 


34 


ORIGINS AND FAITH 


typhoidic or diphtheric germs have localised them- 
selves in a healthy individual, maldng him a 
distributing centre of a disease from which he is 
himself immune. The development of society, 
the education of the whole nation, as well as of 
the conscience, create new ofiPences. “ When the 
commandment came, sin revived, and I died.” A 
practice which is regarded as a sin against the social 
order in one part of the world occupies a reverse 
position in the moral code of another. But these 
varieties of conduct do not in fact touch the main 
issue of the question. For there is present to our 
consciousness a Power which, preying upon the 
passions, seduces the will, and at last enslaves us 
through the grip of an acquired force of habit. 
There is an Evil which breaks the hounds of simple 
selfishness. It is a lust of the blood, a diabolic 
ingenuity of cruelty, a hatred of purity and good- 
ness which drives one human being to ruin another 
for the satisfaction of dragging a saint to the 
gutter. It is this hatred of law and order which 
we sum up under the term of anarchy. If therefore 
a definition of Evil can be found in a sentence we 
may express it as a return to chaos — “ red ruin and 
the breaking up of laws.” It is in constant conflict 
with development, with that security and peace 
which make for cosmos. It is degeneration, work- 
ing actively by means of its spies and soldiery to 
undermine and decompose the fabric created by 
evolution,the outcome of thought and purpose. It 
is the same thing, in fact, whether found in the 
bacillic battalions of pestilence or in those outbreaks 
of moral revolt which seek to reduce all things to 


AT THE BACK OF THE BEGINNINGS 35 


the primal welter of unrestrained passion. If there 
be purpose in the building of the cosmos, we must 
equally find it in the concurrent attacks upon its 
builders; degeneration ever seeking to embarrass 
and defeat them. It is the same power that con- 
ducts a black death or a cholera plague across two 
continents, smiting its millions and leaving desola- 
tion behind, or that is found in the ambition of a 
military conqueror, drunk with the lust of power, 
who devastates a world, and arrests the march of 
civihsation for a century. Goodness is unifying 
purpose. The perfected cosmos is the reasonable 
co-operation of all its parts in a well proportioned 
whole. It ought, therefore, to be stronger than 
Evil in the long run. For Evil, seeking chaotic 
conditions, may perhaps fail in organisation to ac- 
comphsh its own ends. 

We have outworn the argument that happiness 
and health predominate; that sickness and trouble 
are only exceptions. Even if it were true, it could 
easily be exaggerated into an unsubstantial opti- 
mism. For we must remember that we meet the 
best things of life abroad in the world. Music 
forces itself upon our attention. Healthy people 
crowd to the front of the stage with their business 
and their pleasure. Even the boisterous shout of 
the drunken and the laughter of the harlot are all 
in the show. We cannot follow the mind perplexed 
to its lonely home, or count the tears dropped in 
secret, or reckon up the misery which cowers in 
corners, or follow the gloomy processions of 
sickness to the grave. Destitution crawls into a 
dark place to die. But the pageant of life makes 


36 


ORIGINS AND FAITH 


the most of numbers. For its supernumeraries 
cross and recross. 

Natural law may inspire man with reverence 
but it does not give him hope. The closer he looks 
at the struggle the harder it appears. The trees of 
the wood are at death grapple with one another for 
light and air. The weaker and the laggards, 
choked in the conflict, are impoverished or killed 
off. There is no room for a happy republic on 
earth, in air, or in water. The different classes of 
denizens are in constant contention, one class 
against another, even when they are not striving 
individually amongst themselves. 

The balance of Nature is maintained by means of 
murder, suffering, and starvation. The same prin- 

, ciple is found in national and social 
Nature non-moral. ^ moderating influ- 

ences. Every advance to a higher plane must be 
held against all comers. The field uncultured for 
a single season welcomes the return of the barbaric 
rule of wild nature. The agriculturist must always 
be ready to beat his ploughshare into a sword. 

The city goes to ruin under the disintegrating 
influences of the atmosphere. Left to itself the 
grass grows in its streets, and the spider weaves in 
its palaces. So that the trowel of the builder 
must also become a weapon. Brutality which 
cowers under the lash of the law only awaits the 
opportunity through the weakening of authority 
to leap like a beast upon its keeper. Nothing can 
effectually prevent the rust and moth from cor- 
rupting, or the thief from breaking through and 
stealing. The accumulated civilisation of centuries 


AT THE BACK OF THE BEGINNINGS 37 


remains as an asset so long as we are prepared to 
defend it. It is only our spare energy that we 
may devote to improvement. The greater part of 
our strength is consumed in maintenance. There 
are times when we can make no headway. 
“ Having done all, we stand.” Our attention has 
lately been called to the fortified camps, carved out 
of the chalk of the downs in the South of England, 
the winter refuge of a race before the Roman 
brought history into Britain. At intervals, along 
the ramparts, small platforms project, vantage 
spots for warfare with an external foe. We have 
been reminded that the greatest enemy of man was 
at that time the wolf. The open spaces available 
for pasture and cultivation during the summer had 
to be abandoned for the long winter, when the 
pre-Celtic population took refuge in the hills, 
taking their cattle with them. 

Under some temporary dislocation of social 
order, the spur of hunger, the chance of rapine, 
would wake the brute in any modern nation, and 
compel civilisation to fight for very life. In the 
same way disease has been traced to living organ- 
isms,to those active intruders which enter the blood, 
or the membrane, destroying tissue, poisoning the 
fountain of fife, and finally overpowering the militia 
mobilised to oppose them. In our arteries there 
is this constant antagonism between health and 
disease, between life and death. It is no good to 
urge complacently that death is only the comple- 
ment of life, and that fresh being depends upon the 
destruction of the old. Rome did not require to 
be destroyed in one common conflagration in order 


38 


ORIGINS AND FAITH 


that it might be transformed from brick to marble. 
The physical organism is capable of renewal and 
development without the clumsy process of dis- 
solution. We are not living in the best of all 
possible worlds. These stepping-stones of our 
dead selves are a cruel staircase by which we rise 
to higher things. The medical science of three 
hundred years ago showed httle if any improve- 
ment on the experience of the previous three 
thousand years. Indeed, the surgery of Greek 
and Egyptian periods would compare favourably 
with that of Europe in the Middle Ages. But 
within the last century progress has been so 
remarkable that diseases have been destroyed, or 
rendered less dangerous, and life has been pro- 
longed. Yet the intelligence of mankind remained 
approximately at the same level during these many 
centuries. We dare not put the age of Plato on 
a lower level than an age which has produced a 
Simpson or a Darwin. May we not presume that 
The a supreme Goodness would have 
Patience of the guided US to this knowledge if it 
Workman. possible for Him to do 

so? So asks the Christian. But the Agnostic 
philosopher would say that to an Intelligence such 
as we claim for God one day might be filled with 
the labours of a thousand years, or a thousand 
years’ work be contracted to one day. So long as 
the knowledge surely arrives the time of its arrival 
is only of interest to the individual. With the 
broken potsherds about His feet, the Potter con- 
tinues to better his worlonanship until it will bear 
the strain of the fire. We must admit that 


AT THE BACK OF THE BEGINNINGS 39 


He can only work according to the capacity 
of His material. He reads into it possibilities 
unseen by mortal observation. Like the poet. He 
can breathe a world of loveliness into a rhythmic 
arrangement of linked syllables ; like the artist, He 
can charm the picture into being from pencil stroke 
and compounded colour; or, like the musician, He 
can blend separate sounds into harmonies which 
draw all heaven to listen. Out of stones the Master 
has made bread. The finished product is vastly 
greater than the crude colour, the smooth parch- 
ment, or the musical string. We should not expect 
reaction, decay, or even faltering, in a world 
undisturbed by elements of a hostile character. But- 
for Him it is not simply a question of nurturing 
His children. He has to buy them back from the 
enemy. He has sown good seed in His field, but 
whilst men have slept an enemy has come and sown 
tares among the wheat. It is not only that He 
has made us and not we ourselves, but with our 
consent and co-operation He must work out for us 
a common salvation. Upon our smaller scale we too 
may breathe noble ideas into lowly material, strive 
for the best against our constant enemy, and deliver 
our brother from the pit. What is this enemy? 

We have refused to admit Evil as simply the 
by-product of Goodness, a mere negation; and yet 
it is difficult to realize a force which ^ of Evil 

exists for the purpose of destruc- 
tion without other intent or design. There may 
be a peculiar fascination in a variety of wonders, 
in a mingling of sensations, a bubbling crater of 
volcanic emotion, in which beauty, order, and 


40 


ORIGINS AND FAITH 


harmony are potentially present, for ever coming 
to the birth, yet never appearing. Evil may, there- 
fore, be regarded as an effort at reversion in order 
to revel in that variegated causation and confusion. 

There is, however, a better theory than that of 
this tendency to reversion as an explanation. We 
have no information as to any universe beyond 
our own; but such schemes of being are bound tq 
exist, and a competing cosmos may be governed by 
physical laws entirely different from those with 
which we are familiar. Out of the Unknowable 
there must surely have been in the past, as again 
there will be in the future, manifestations of 
ordered life. If the embodied Thought of one of 
those systems was in conflict with the supreme 
Being of our own cosmos we should not accept 
his “ acts of barbarism ” as the measure of his 
ideals, any more than a civilised State at war 
could be judged by the exigencies of that con- 
dition. It would seek to obtain possession of the 
territory, and would destroy before it reconstituted, 
so that the new political and social conditions 
might follow. 

It is also evident that the struggle becomes more 
severe as the upward progress continues. The 
creature, emancipated from its past, is ever drawn 
back to the type it has forsaken. At first, instinct 
and tradition have a greater hold upon it than the 
idealism of its new world. The wicked and 
slothful servant is wicked because slothful. He 
refuses to put his fresh powers out to usury. The 
bird and the beast, as well as the human being, 
have to grow accustomed to the new endowment. 


AT THE BACK OF THE BEGINNINGS 41 


until compelled by necessity to use the higher 
equipment. It takes some time to accustom the 
brain to fresh opportunities, but when the new 
instinct has been evolved it stereotypes the acquired 
power, and so the reason is set free for further 
conquest. But Evil allies itself with the lower 
instincts, the discarded habit, and seeks to draw 
the angel back to the brute. 

Thus far we have no measure of the depths to 
which Evil may descend. It has proved a bottom- 
less pit to those who have attempted to explore it. 
In order to effect its object, Evil must seek to be 
personified in cosmic existence. On the earth, 
incarnation offers a medium for the exercise of its 
powers. Most of us realise that it can capture 
intelligence, disturb the proportion of the mind, 
inflame one passion or desire out of all relation- 
ship to others. The intelligence demurs, the 
will wrestles, but Evil can always ultimately 
carry the unprotected, self-reliant soul, and can in- 
corporate itself into the very life of its captive. 

Certain mental derangements, functional dis- 
turbances of the brain, can only be explained satis- 
factorily by the presence of an intruder. There 
are manifestations of dementia otherwise inexpli- 
cable. Some forms of animal madness as well as of 
human derangement recall Pagan stories not lightly 
to be set aside. As, in the gospel, “ Suffer us to go 
into the herd of swine ” is a parable of Evil 
demanding incarnation in order not to be driven 
out of the world. Whether Evil be moral or 
physical the struggle against it produces pain. In 
disease a quick surrender shortens the suffering of 


42 


ORIGINS AND FAITH 


the individual; a prolonged struggle may cause 
agony, but is essential to recovery. Even if a 
Power intervenes to save a hapless soul from final 
ruin, there must be co-operative suffering and 
struggle on the part of the soul. 

From the Christian side it would be urged that 
God is working patiently for ends not yet 
accomplished, and which can only be obtained 
at the cost of sacrifice and effort. If it be argued 
that it is God who limits Himself, we have involved, 
in this explanation, the suggestion of necessity 
laid upon God. It is certain that suffering and 
loss are at present part of the natural order of 
things. 

Yet as Evil cannot be attributed to a Personality 
of perfect Goodness, are we to regard it as only 
Evil not Goodness Goodness disguised? But we deny 
disguised. that Goodness is maintained by the 
presence of an insistent and tormenting foe. It is 
not bound to come into existence against a back- 
ground of darkness as the rainbow glows across 
the blackness of the cloud. It is not necessary for 
a man to suffer from frequent illness in order to 
appreciate health or to acquire bodily fitness. 
Evil may be forced to serve high purpose, as a 
head wind, by skilful seamanship, may be compelled 
to bring a vessel on its course. The ship, however, 
loses time by tacking, and a steady trade-wind 
behind it would have accomplished the same result 
with much less expenditure of labour. 

The hostihty of God to Evil is so manifest both 
in the Hebrew and in the Christian Scriptures that 
the theory of its temporary permission really proves 


AT THE BACK OF THE BEGINNINGS 43 


useless to the Christian apologist. If, therefore, 
Evil is traced back to an origin entirely independent 
of a personal God, then it is clear that He cannot 
be in Himself the First Cause. It will be objected 
that to assume He is not First Cause is to diminish 
reverence and confidence in Him. If He be not, 
then the First Cause, the Whole, must be greater 
than He, and therefore in itself the Absolute. Our 
God becomes something less than It. We grant 
this. But what security have we that in this 
greater Whole there is a preponderance of the 
Good, or that the universe as we know it might not 
be overwhelmed by some change in Its disposition? 
The reply to this is that our only interpretation of 
the Unknowable is in the Knowable, and that here 
in the Universe order and right do predominate. 
We may, therefore, justly argue that if that 
Unknowable has produced a supreme Goodness 
such as we recognise in our own Ruler, and that if 
He dominates our universe, even with a limited 
control, that Goodness must exceed Evil in the 
constitution of the Unknowable. 

Our strongest affections do not go back to our 
remote ancestors, but are directed to our parents, 
the immediate source of our being, Cause has 
We, therefore, give to Him Who no claim upon 
made us, and not we ourselves, that Affection, 
affection which cannot find its object in the un- 
certainties of that indefinite past from which all 
created things have come. We are compelled to 
accept the fact of this outer universe, this hypothe- 
sis of the Unknown; and we have notliing to do 
with those black abysses in whose wilderness life. 


44 


ORIGINS AND FAITH 


organised and unorganised, must surely exist. We 
are, therefore, bound to accept the argument that 
as God is a person He must be less than the Whole, 
which is infinite and therefore unknowable; and 
also that as Evil must be an active power in 
the universe it cannot be attributed to God, but 
issues from the Unknowable. So there are these 
two reasons established for the hmitation of the 
power of God, and they explain the evolutionary 
conditions under which He is bound to work. But 
we have relationship to One Who we beheve has 
made us in His own image. He differs from us 
only in the magnificence and extent of His powers. 
He is an individual with Whom we may hold 
converse, feel sympathy, and to Whom we may 
draw near in full assurance of faith. We can well 
understand that He cannot afford to absent Him- 
self from the world which to Him is like a huge 
business concern. He must have the best of us for 
His workmen. Apart from our religious suscep- 
tibilities, He will select the suitable instruments 
through which His purposes may be accomphshed, 
whether the individual acknowledges Him or not. 
Thus He must be in every laboratory, at the back 
of every investigation, inspiring the man of genius, 
guiding the discoverer. He is enriched by the 
thoughts of His children. Our conscious co-opera- 
tion can then be a strength and a help to Him. It 
is impossible for us to place a limit to His attain- 
ment, yet He becomes greater through our love 
and service. If He must use us to further His own 
design, that very contact with our personal lives 
gives us in return some hold upon Him. 


A RELIGION OF HUMANITY 


Ill 

A RELIGION OF HUMANITY 


I F the foregoing conclusions are substantially 
true, we ought to discover the elements of a 
faith to which our common intuitions will 
assent. Meanwhile, a voice calls halt to investiga- 
tion. Naturalism, which confines its interpretations 
of the universe to phenomena, discarding alike the 
whispered hypothesis of Herbert The Gospel of 
Spencer and the outspoken claims Naturalism, 
of the Pantheist, declares that the religious instinct 
in man can be completely satisfied from within the 
bounds of humanity. This is a rehgion which 
neither calls up its God from vast deeps nor searches 
for Him amidst starry heights, but finds sufficient 
scope for faith and worship in the world in which 
we dwell, and in the human race of which we form 
a part. There is enough to engross all our time 
and attention for the brief period of our earthly 
fife. By concentrating our thought upon physical 
existence, can we not strive to make the world a 
much more comfortable habitation during our 
leasehold tenancy? That is surely enough; for we 
are not likely ever to see a better. 

Naturalism offers a rational explanation of 
physical life, follows those same laws into the range 
of society, and declares that religion is developed 
under similar conditions. This practical philosophy 
47 


48 


ORIGINS AND FAITH 


tells us that the earliest faiths grew out of supersti- 
tious imaginations which prompted man to per- 
sonify natural forces, “ to see God in clouds or hear 
Him in the wind.” But the true religious instinct 
is the willingness to subordinate individual prefer- 
ence to the good of the community. The com- 
munity, however, widens from the petty circle of 
the family to the tribe, to the nation, and at last 
to humanity itself. Possibly we may thus be led 
to the ultimate faith, the worship of that Cosmos 
which is all in all, and of which the earth itself 
is only a trifling detail. We must remember that 
patriotism, for a time, was symbolised in the cult 
Patriotism, of a local deity. To-day it is a 

a Religion. passion of fidelity to an ideahsed 

country. This religion of race impels man to 
suffer hunger, thirst, and death itself, in order 
to maintain the honour of his flag or add to the 
glory of the community to which he belongs. It 
is a personal sacrifice rising superior to emotion; 
for it is often made in cold blood. In pursuance 
of mihtary duty a man will volunteer for the fight- 
ing fine and attempt a forlorn hope, scorning the 
death which snatches from him his conscious share 
in the victory and consigns him to extinction. We 
are bound to listen to the apostle of Naturalism 
when he tells us that his religion will challenge 
comparison with any other in the success of its 
recruiting and in the courage of its service. He 
will point to the man who dies for his country 
as greater than the one who suffers martyrdom in 
order to save his own soul. We cannot refuse to 
rank such a faith amongst the religions, nor deny its 


A RELIGION OF HUMANITY 


49 


enthusiasm for humanity. If no love for a per- 
sonal God appears in this, at least there is a love 
for one’s neighbour exceeding the love of self. 

Man is a social animal, for the reason which has 
stimulated gregariousness in other animals — the 
necessity of common defence and The Social 
offence. To wander in the wil- instinct, 
derness, and to find no city to dwell in, is the 
penalty of the solitary. To maintain the exist- 
ence of the family, the tribe, or the nation would 
soon become a prime necessity presently growing 
into a strong inherited instinct. The many ad- 
vantages which accrue to an individual from associ- 
ation with others will account for fidelity to one’s 
tribe. The tribe would draw together closer for 
economic reasons, the need of specialising their 
work. Further, the community will naturally give 
applause and reward to those who distinguish 
themselves in the common interests. That reward 
finds expression to-day in the honours showered 
upon the successful soldier, or in the patent rights 
conferred upon the inventor. With the prize in 
view, perseverance in the public service grows into 
a moral duty, and the citizen hke the Christian 
endures to the end that he may obtain the crown. 
Even a sinful man feels that in a baptism of blood 
he may purge his previous misdoings, and through 
a glorious death win the respect and affection which 
he had otherwise forfeited. Posthumous honour is 
delightful in foretaste. At the moment of dying 
a man may antedate his triumph, anticipating that 
his spirit may linger consciously amongst its old 
surroundings, sharing the joy of victory. It is 


50 


ORIGINS AND FAITH 


easy to see that the traditions of the past crystallise 
into the instinct that to die for one’s country is a 
practical virtue bound to be rewarded somehow, 
somewhere. 

In the case of the Jew, patriotism and rehgion 
are co-incident. Over the battlefield of the Jap- 
anese the spirits of their departed heroes hover, 
glorying in their accomphshed task, a “ choir in- 
visible ” which mingles its music with the shouting 
of the captains. 

So strong is the desire for distinction that it 
sometimes degenerates into a passion for notoriety. 
Students of criminology recognise that terrible 
crimes have been committed in order that some 
commonplace individual, conscious of his inferiority, 
may grasp at public notice. Failing popularity he 
seeks to be magnificent in sin, of one mind with 
Milton s Satan that it is “ better to reign in hell 
than serve in heaven.” 

Can the sentiment of patriotism be transferred 
to humanity as a whole, becoming a world-wide 
rehgion? The next step in its evolution will be 
exceedingly difficult. For the struggle of the fu- 
ture threatens to take the line of race and colour, to 
resolve itself into an Armageddon between the 
white races on the one hand and the yellow and the 
black races on the other. The Asiatic held an equal 
or higher position in the scale of civilisation within 
the range of the historic centuries; but the white 
man has resolved to retain the superiority which he 
has so lately won. The modern democracies resent 
the presence of an inferior race to which they are 
not prepared to concede equality of rights, either 


A RELIGION OF HUMANITY 


51 


socially or politically, but whose servile condition 
might challenge their own liberties. This difficulty 
at present obstructs the highest expression of that 
universal brotherhood which is the goal of this 
Positivist faith. But we must remember that to 
Naturalism religion is incidental to moral develop- 
ment, an emotional sanction to the communal sense 
of the greatest good for the greatest number; and 
further, that morality is claimed as a development 
on evolutionary lines; so that from a conffict of 
interests between the individual and The idealism of 
the community has issued a sense Ethics, 
of right and wrong, a gospel of altruism. Under 
this theory, rehgion can only keep step with the 
advance of an ethical system, and cannot ideahse 
a standard yet unattained. To kill a member of 
the tribe or of the nation in cold blood means 
murder, an offence against the well-being of that 
body to which one belongs; but if the same com- 
munity be seized with a passion for the acquirement 
of more territory, or have a grievance against its 
neighbour, it will call upon the same individual 
which it would punish for private murder, to kill 
as many others as possible belonging to the oppos- 
ing community. Therefore the narrow interests of 
one’s own community are the only standard for 
measuring this particular right or wrong. So reso- 
lutely inconsistent is this law that if a man refuses 
to murder wholesale, or if he deserts after a call to 
arms, he will be punished by death in the same 
way as if he had committed private murder. 

As the tribe grows into the nation, the tribal 
duty is inherited by the larger power, and as, in 


52 


ORIGINS AND FAITH 


course of time, the nation extends into an empire it 
receives ampler homage, and almost as a deity is 
worshipped by symbol and invoked as a hving 
presence. We see, therefore, that Naturahsm 
embodies in morality those convenient rules of 
social order which are created by expediency but 
which have no mystical obligation. The society of 
the present is the slave of its past. The habit and 
custom, the thought which appears so modern, are 
all ghosts of the dead. The opinions of to-day in 
their recurring ebb and flow are swayed by the 
cold satellite of an all-but-forgotten history. If 
Intellectuality and tWs were true we should expect 
Morality not that SOcial morality would main- 
concurrent. tain the pace of intellectual 
growth, but this is certainly not the case. If the 
law of evolution in morals followed the develop- 
ment of species we should anticipate a higher stand- 
ard in the old world than in the new. The old 
world has enjoyed opportunities for intellectual 
culture denied to the new. America and Australia 
have suffered intellectually from their isolation, as 
they are behind the older continents in the variety 
of the fauna and flora. But the discovery of the 
new world revealed a morahty which compared 
favourably with the old. The personal and social 
life in Central America, Mexico, and Peru, would 
have held its own with the contemporaneous life 
of the states on this side of the Atlantic. The 
family life of the Aztec of the sixteenth century 
was a model for the European. China and Japan 
to-day are no strangers to domestic virtues of a 
high order. Even the Indian of North America 


A RELIGION OF HUMANITY 


has a fairly reputable code of morals. Filial piety, 
truthfulness, purity of life, self-denial, are not the 
peculiar possessions of any particular people or 
time. Races that have excelled in courage have 
ignored their aged and weaker members. Personal 
chastity has rarely been enforced by law, but yet 
has been valued and practised under inferior civili- 
sations. There are, of course, variations due to 
local custom which must be regarded as exceptional. 
Marriage, for example, is a fast chain in one 
country, in another a slight fetter dissolved at will. 
Polygamy and polyandry are frequently deviations 
forced upon the community by particular condi- 
tions. In addition to this, a coarse life must not 
be confounded with an immoral one. The inde- 
cency of the savage which offends our taste by no 
means implies a vicious propensity. On the other 
hand, it is historically notorious that people of high 
intellectual attainment have been addicted to the 
worst forms of vice, and have fallen victims to their 
own moral deterioration. If we fail to find a 
growth of morality corresponding to the physical 
and intellectual development of the race, we are 
bound to challenge a theory which denies any sug- 
gestion or impulse other than that of experience 
and surroundings in the evolution of the moral 
sense. Even if it be asserted that the morality 
of Naturalism concerns the relation of the indi- 
vidual to the State, and has nothing to say to his 
own personal, ethical consciousness, it is a delusion 
to suppose that anyone can become a law unto 
himself without injuring the community of which 
he forms a part. There is no non-conducting 


54 


ORIGINS AND FAITH 


material between himself and others. The drunk- 
ard or the unclean is unable to keep his public 
duties immune from his private taint. In the 
general deterioration his weakened efficiency will 
deduct something appreciable from the common 
fund. There is therefore clearly a place for re- 
hgious motive supplementary to the law which 
punishes for social offences. But Naturahsm re- 
fuses to recognise any higher motive than loyalty 
to the public good, or any cause and effect beyond 
those which are pre-determined. We are the slaves, 
not the free men, of Evolution; we are bound to 
obey; yet we dream that we are free. 

Are we justified in attributing one result uni- 
formly to the same cause? Or are we indeed able 

Naturalism and to determine the cause? If our 
Determinism. intention be concentrated upon the 
horses which draw the chariot of the sun, shall we 
not lose the vision of Apollo, the Charioteer? A 
hive of intelligent bees, safely mustered for the 
night, hear a tap on the wooden roof. One bee, 
and one only, is sent outside to reconnoitre. He 
does not return ; the noise is repeated ; another mes- 
senger is sent ; and of him no more is seen. The 
law is unfailing in its operation, and a Spencerian 
bee will explain that if a tap be heard on the top 
of the wooden box, and a bee go out to investigate 
the cause, that bee never returns. These are the 
facts. All else lies beyond bee reason. But if half 
a dozen bees had gone out to explore, the five sur- 
vivors would have discovered that a tomtit had 
settled on the roof of the hive, and finding that a 
tap on the wood brought out a bee, continued the 


A RELIGION OF HUMANITY 


55 


experiment until he had finished his supper. There 
is so much in hfe that suggests hypotheses other 
than those within the immediate range of physical 
science. 

We also know something of deviation. Eoth in 
the vegetable and in the animal world we have 
modified colour and form. We are conscious that 
whatever be the range of Determinism our own 
actions have a certain play, an area in which free 
will may be exercised; but we are also conscious 
that external influences hinder our hberty of choice. 
Our position in life has been settled in its larger 
features by birth and circumstance. We may be 
European, born into a given country, into a certain 
class, with associations and sympathies ready made, 
white men immune against certain diseases, and 
susceptible to others. Yet we know that we can 
modify the effect of these conditions. A mere child, 
in the centre of a plank, with a comparatively small 
exercise of muscular force, can raise and lower the 
two ends of the see-saw. But the child may easily 
pass under a governing power that deprives him 
of any further control of the movement. 

Again, we challenge Naturalism upon variations 
in the law of physical evolution. The world of 
Naturalism is a dwelhng-place for those physically 
fitted to their.surroundings, apart from moral con- 
siderations. It is not always the best, but some- 
times the worst, that wins. The good man with 
weak lungs has to give way to the brute with a fine 
constitution. Meekness and gentleness go to the 
wall under physical disabilities. But the dragon, 
the huge saurian of the tertiary period, wallowing 


56 


ORIGINS AND FAITH 


in slime, equipped with formidable weapons for 
mastery, has failed to hold its own, and disappears 
from later geological history. Survival is there- 
fore a question of mental ability and of moral 
quality. At any rate, it is remarkable that the 
small mammal, man, which has at last acquired 
the lordship of earth, summons religion to his aid 
in order to perfect his moral sense. 

Surely Naturalism becomes irrational when it 
deduces exclusively a universal law from phenom- 
Naturaiism For physical development 

becomes often reaches a dead end, as if it 
Irrational. wandered into a blind alley from 
which there was no escape. The bee or the beaver 
apparently are cases of arrested intelligence. There 
is a selective process at work in the physical world 
which suggests early evolutionary experiments 
modified by a subsequent judgment that determines 
the final direction of successful evolution. There 
are yet dark continents within the sphere of 
physical science which remain uninvestigated. The 
outline of an island has been traced, but much of 
its interior remains unmapped. 

There is a still graver objection to the adoption 
of Naturalism as a substitute for religion. Science 
The Curve of accepts a curve of life which re- 
life. turns upon itself, an ellipse which 
is bound to be ultimately completed. But is there 
any idealism in this monotonous circulation of cause 
and effect? The weariness of perpetual reversion 
deprives us of real incentive to perseverance and 
sacrifice. The martyr who dies for his cause, the 
soldier who falls for his flag, will ask why he should 


A RELIGION OF HUMANITY 


57 


throw away the happiness of the moment, in order 
to advance the interests of the whole community. 
After all, it can only anticipate by a little that 
which is inevitable. Why should it come more 
quickly? To reach the zenith is to begin the 
decline. There is no particular moral value in 
acceleration. When the clock has run down it 
will be wound up and will beat out the fresh hours. 
There is no enduring heaven, no far off divine 
event to which the whole creation moves. Why 
reach after the morning star, the herald of new and 
better things, if the breaking of the dawn only 
forecasts the coming sunset? All earthly glory 
fails in darkness, and the waste gas from our 
quenched universe will serve to light other systems 
and to awake other problems. To the Titans, and 
not to us, belongs the task of turning the great 
wheels of destiny. Why bid us take shortened views, 
realise the duty of altruism, love and strive after 
the best for its own sake? We object to follow a 
straight and narrow way, with bruised feet, when 
there is an alternative meadow land, soft and 
pleasant. Can such a philosophy encourage sacri- 
fice, in order that we may leave the world a little 
better than we found it? Why should we do so? 
The good thing will be done by somebody, some- 
where. The race will reach the highest point of the 
pass sooner Oi’ later, but only to begin the descent 
on the other side. Why hasten this fate? Leave 
us alone on the sunny slopes of existence, like 
Boccaccio’s fugitives who made life tolerable whilst 
the plague raged in Florence. But Naturalism 
exhorts us to face the facts like men, and explains 


58 


ORIGINS AND FAITH 


that we may train the instincts to delight in altru- 
ism, joy in clean living, creating a virtue which is 
both profitable and pleasant. We are not driven 
to be righteous over much, and when the curtain 
falls we shall know, or shall not know, as the case 
may be. The Scientist bids us yield to the seduc- 
tions of Nature, who deludes us with the idea that 
we are necessary constituents in a progressive move- 
ment. By this amiable fiction she secures the con- 
tinuity of her processes. Like the lizard we must 
take the colour of our surroundings, whether the 
green of the tree, or the gray of the road. This 
is surely a philosophy and not a religion; for it 
lacks the driving force of the old faiths. But if 
we once admit an intelligent and directing purpose 
in life, then our intuitions rise from phantasmal 
deceptions into suggestions of truth. The law of 
monotonous circulation will then give way to one 
of intermittent though persistent progress. This 
is only because religion has re-entered existence as 
its interpreter and guide. As soon as philosophy 
Idealism demands rccogniscs the need of a religious 
Religion. ideal it may find that Christianity 
^vill prove less trying to its patience than the cult 
of new superstitions. We do not get rid of the 
stars by circumnavigating the globe. We can only 
exchange the Great Bear for the Southern Cross. 

If religion, however, be once admitted, it is bound 
to grow anthropomorphic in its realised form. The 
most spiritual man so-called is driven to endow 
his deity with an exalted edition of those human 
powers with which he is familiar, and beyond which 
his imagination refuses to carry him. God must be 


A RELIGION OF HUMANITY 


59 


a F ather to him at the least. It is therefore not in- 
consistent to anticipate a distinct manifestation of 
Godhead in humanity. The world idealises Jesus 
because it believes that in Him once in history a 
moral Being of the finest type has been evolved. 
It has never been satisfied with a high intellectual 
development alone. Its representative must be one 
that can reveal under human limitation the best 
thought of the supreme Mind. 

Naturalism is, therefore, a registration of facts 
as they are presented to the senses. It teaches us 
to obey Nature as we find her, to ignore a future 
concerning which we have nothing to say and prob- 
ably nothing to learn. If there be one eternal exist- 
ence we are but temporary expressions of it, leaves 
upon the tree of life, which unfold, deepen in colour, 
fade and fall. As a system. Naturalism has noth- 
ing to say to the beginnings of things, nor any 
prophecy as to their endings. 



THE FAITH BEFORE THE FAITH 


IV 


THE FAITH BEFORE THE FAITH 

W E have listened to the gospel of Natural- 
ism. But it provides nothing to satisfy 
the spiritual instinct of 

the individual beyond a religion of ^ Common Faith, 
a social order. It does not attempt to interpret 
those mysteries which lie beyond the range of sense, 
and it is deficient in a comprehensive idealism. Be- 
fore turning to Christianity, it is desirable to dis- 
cover, if possible, a common religious experience of 
mankind upon which may be founded the accept- 
ance of a higher faith. For we should expect that a 
revelation of the truth which claims to he the full- 
est would prove to be an expansion of a universal, 
religious instinct, a development of receptiveness 
keeping pace with the latest speech of God. We 
must, therefore, not confine it within the narrow 
boundaries of an age, or a country, or to a history of 
thought foreign to the general human conscious- 
ness. In seeking a common faith, we need not con- 
cern ourselves with comparative theology, or with 
the varying forms in which the world’s religions 
have found expression. We must strike deeper to 
reach the foundation we require. 

In the first place, we find that a belief in external 
powers affecting the individual life for good and 
evil, and moulding the destiny of pieuraiism and 
nations, is common to the whole Monotheism. 

63 


64 


ORIGINS AND FAITH 


world of civilised and uncivilised existence. In most 
cases, there are gods many. And so persistent is this 
pluralism of deity, graded though it may be accord- 
ing to capacity, that it is doubtful whether a pure 
monotheism has ever secured complete assent from 
any age. Spirits of good and evil haunt the shadows 
of the Hebrew faith during the very time in which 
the supremacy of Jehovah was most scrupulously 
maintained. The unity of God, expressed in Trinity, 
appears in early Christian teaching, whilst angel 
forms and saintly figures multiply as rapidly in 
Catholic worship as fauns and dryads crowded the 
Greek mythology. A deep significance must be at- 
tached to this fact. It is possible that a triune inter- 
pretation of God is a subconscious recognition of an 
antecedent nature of deity in the Unknown — an in- 
terpretation of an older plurahsm. And at the 
same time the spiritual offices of the universe are 
performed by a great agency of finely endowed be- 
ings through whom the wealth of the divine purpose 
and love is distributed to its many habitable regions. 
But this multiplication of agencies does not indeed 
affect the argument that mankind from age to age 
has testified to the existence of a Power which has 
helped and guided it through fife. Trusting to that 
Power, men have been protected from those influ- 
ences hostile to their well-being and perpetually 
striking across the path of progress. They have 
constantly prayed to be delivered from Evil, to be 
hidden in a rock of refuge from the stormy wind 
and the tempest. Evidence of this appears in the 
sacred writings of every religion which has achieved 
world importance. Prophets of the different faiths 


THE f AITH BEFORE THE FAITH 


65 


speak almost the same language when they are 
thirsting for the hving God, prompted by longings 
after that Unseen which is so elusive though it be- 
sets them behind and before. True or false, it is 
ineradicable as a conviction. It survives the wreck 
of intellectual belief and persists in the most gro- 
tesque and unhkely forms. The philosophy of 
Buddhism does not hinder a Burman kneeling at 
the shrine for immediate help in sickness or distress. 
Abraham on the uplands of Syria, and Mohammed 
crouching in the cave, a fugitive on the road to 
Medina, are equally conscious of the same supreme 
companionship. It is under these divine eyes that 
personal morality is begotten, the answer of the in- 
dividual to a higher court than that of man. The 
proofs of this accumulate from age ^ , 

f _ , , 11.7 Friend unseen. 

to age. Socrates acknowledges the 
presence of his daemon, and even Napoleon trusts 
to the fortunes of his star. Men who have httle 
else of spiritual faith yet confide in the reality of 
their mission, and beheve that they are sent into the 
world for a purpose, supported through their duty 
and responsible for their co-operation with the Un- 
seen. The very exceptions prove the rule, as blind- 
ness testifies to the universality of sight. It is at 
the least “ that power not ourselves which makes 
for righteousness.” This faculty of apprehension 
must be narcotised by ethical revolt, or atrophied 
through indiflPerence, if it does not prove to be in 
every man a recurring fact of consciousness. 

The scientist will interrupt by urging that this 
impression must be regarded as subjective, and that 
it is the pathetic desire of man lonely in the uni- 


66 


ORIGINS AND FAITH 


verse to find companionship for himself in some one 
higher, more powerful, and external. He projects 
the shadow of his own figure upon the wall of mist 
and thinks that he has found a God. Even should 
we yield to the argument of a subjective impression 
with which we are dealing, it is at any rate a con- 
tribution to some objective fact. By general con- 
sent a red light has been taken for a danger signal 
in the railway world. But there are individuals, 
so-called colour-blind, though otherwise healthy and 
sane, to whom red appears as green. If persons 
with this optic peculiarity were to multiply, they 
might at last reach a majority, which would reverse 
the standard opinion and declare for the future that 
the visual impression termed red ought to regarded 
as green. Until that unhkely condition obtains we 
are bound to retain our present system of signalling. 
It may be said, of course, that there is neither red- 
ness nor greenness existing in fact, but that the two 
impressions are subjectively realised by different 
persons according to their idiosyncrasies. Never- 
theless, there is the objective something, and the 
majority who are faithful to their subjective im- 
pression govern the interpretation. As in the prac- 
tical workings of every-day life we accept the colour 
red as no uncertain fact, though it may be entirely 
subjective, so we are bound to act in the matter of 
religion if we are to retain any working faith at 
all. We therefore claim the existence of a spirit- 
ual instinct which detects the presence of powers 
external to the individual, and regulates life accord- 
ingly. Such a theory cannot be rejected as scien- 
tifically impossible. Apart from the use of inter- 


THE FAITH BEFORE THE FAITH 


67 


mediaries, we can imagine a Supreme Personality 
of like nature to ourselves, though vastly beyond 
human experience in the range of His powers. 
Even we can multiply our impressions and divide 
our attention within the limits of personahty. It is 
not, therefore, incredible for us to assume a multi- 
consciousness, acting through a divine telegraphy, 
with an operating centre, so in- The Muiti-consdous- 
tricate as to be in touch with every ness of God. 
living thing. Through this means the one great 
Personality could tell the number of His stars, 
calling them all by their names, become interested 
in the politics of an ant-hill, or count the very hairs 
of our heads. Through this universal medium His 
all-searching activities would vibrate, and He could 
receive in return the sympathy and appeal of His 
Creation. This spiritual Power, as universal as 
ether, as emotional as electricity, like an extended 
nervous system, permeates all life. Through it He 
could concentrate His consciousness at will, and so 
be present at any place within the limits of His 
universe. “ Whither can I go from Thy presence, 
and whither can I flee from Thy Spirit?” The 
phenomena of Nature, present with us as matter, 
may find their correlative in the sphere of spirit, for 
both are probably manifestations of the same primal 
substance. Spirit we may regard as an alternative 
of matter, too tenuous for human apprehension, but 
none the less conditioned by space and endowed with 
quality. We do not require to have electricity 
materialised in order to have evidence of its potency, 
but we may transpose electricity into conditions 
which demonstrate its existence to our other senses. 


68 


ORIGINS AND FAITH 


It may well happen in the future that the spiritual 
may be found capable of translation, at second 
hand at least, into material manifestations. 

This instinctive faith of the soul in the Unseen 
is cherished in child-like hearts, who day by day 
walk in the Hght of it, imperfect though it may be. 
Void of conscious offence towards God and man, 
these souls tremble like the compass needle with 
every swing of the vessel, yet always reverting to 
the magnetic north. Nothing in life is too small 
for them to attribute to a gracious intervention. 
For, indeed, the most serious issues often turn upon 
the slightest cause. These believing hearts regard 
themselves as part in the plan of a great system of 
life. They do not attempt to interpret the cryptic 
meaning of the whole. They trust that the Hands 
that have not failed them here will find them again 
in the mysterious future. Should this consciousness 
of an ever-present Friend fail them through dis- 
obedience or temporary indifference, they never rest 
until the chill shadow has melted in the atmosphere 
of repentance and forgiveness. This is the “ secret 
of the Lord,” the common property of those who 
have entered into its meaning by the same road al- 
though they are represented by different names. 
Such a bare outline of religion is the sufficient faith 
for many of to-day. Those who hold it are often 
half ashamed to confess that their intellectual equip- 
ment is so slight and their reliance upon personal 
intuition so great. Thinkers of repute, men whose 
criticism has proved peculiarly destructive to the 
creed of the moment, seldom part with this intui- 
tional religion. It is this universal consciousness of 


THE FAITH BEFORE THE FAITH 


69 


God which Christianity re-states and amphfies. A 
belief in guardianship and gentlest care has multi- 
plied the saints of Catholicism. In Protestantism 
it is replaced by some beloved friend just passed 
away, whose comradeship and oversight continue a 
guardian interest in the one left behind. It is only 
an extension of the providential idea of God into 
detail. “ I know in Whom I have believed ” is the 
answer of many a soul to the suggestion of doubt. 

It may be said that there has only been a meagre 
response to this confidence. Believers vary little 
from unbelievers, if at all, in their life experience. 
The sun shines upon the just and upon the unjust, 
and disease and death take their impartial toll of 
both. Yet we must not be hasty in our judgment. 
For we have already assumed that the conditions 
under which God works admit of considerable 
elasticity in detail, whilst the general law of His 
universe is maintained. He may do much for an 
individual by modifying the course of his life with- 
out any arrest of natural law or injustice to others. 
Moreover, His providence can The Area of 
mould and direct so that those Providence, 
physical forces which are yet untamed are brought 
by degrees under the control of the bit and the 
bridle. Even we can deal with a river which has 
spread itself dangerously over the face of the coun- 
try by bringing it within banks and forcing it to 
serve useful purposes. The engineer cannot be 
responsible for every eccentricity of the stream 
w^hen it breaks bounds and causes an occasional 
inundation. The processes by which the world is 
rendered fit for the habitation of man are probably 


70 


ORIGINS AND FAITH 


not yet concluded. Nature still wrestles with its 
Master. The devastating fire leaps out of the cavi- 
ties of the earth, and the tornado slipping leash has 
to be overtaken and hunted back into the cavern of 
the winds. We may reasonably presume that the 
appearance of man in the new house prepared for 
him could only have been delayed at a loss greater 
than the inconvenience caused by the presence of 
workpeople who have not cleared off the scene be- 
fore the arrival of the fresh tenant. It is within 
reasonable probability that man will be able in the 
future to control the earthquake tremor by provid- 
ing mechanical outlets for insurgent forces, as he 
is now almost prepared to dissipate a fog. At the 
least, the God Who commands our affections must 
be One Who has done everything possible to miti- 
gate the burdens of life, and to save us from despair. 

There are certain races, as well as individuals, 
who are more susceptible than others to spiritual 
impressions. With some, indeed, it is a veritable 
intuition — a second sight. This faculty is as much 
an endowment as a sense for music or for art. It 
is only the use of the faculty which raises an 
ethical question. We have the Hebrew brothers, 
twin born, the one an Esau and the other a Jacob. 
The one sees oxen, and the other sees angels. 
Nothing can prevent the spiritually minded from 
realising these presences. In moments of crisis 
they cluster about them and they exclaim: 

Spiritual ‘‘ This is God’s host.” The moral 
Endowment. attainment of such men may be 
equal to that of their fellows in whom the 
spiritual instinct is less sensitive. But they cannot 


THE FAITH BEFORE THE FAITH 


71 


doubt, although they may deny, their faith. They 
deny consciously, and therefore criminally. Like 
the spirits of another sphere, they “ believe and 
tremble.’’ To such natures it is easier to enter the 
Kingdom of God, but harder to remain within it. 
Their very endowment multiplies their responsi- 
bilities and increases the difficulty of distinguishing 
between emotion and religion. But such individuals 
are not hypocrites. They desire to do right; they 
realise temptation; they dread the growth of evil 
habit; but the emotion begotten by their spiritual 
faculty has also stirred other passions. And in the 
tempest of their soul they run danger of shipwreck. 
The world looks on with astonishment at those 
persons, pillars of propriety, long connected with 
the Church, who break down into the mire of 
common and gross vice. The man of the world, 
uninstructed as to their spiritual history, derides 
their religion as a cloak of infamy, and exults 
in the fact that he at least has made no profession. 
The harm done by such moral failings may be in- 
calculable, but as sinners they are no greater than 
others. The wrong which they have committed 
appears the more intense because it darkens against 
the snow of their former lives; but they have actu- 
ally followed the better way until the evil parleyed 
with in secret has at last overcome them. Their 
punishment is more severe, their remorse far 
greater than that of the loose hver whose final 
fall hardly attracts attention. 

Similarly there are races emotional, receptive, 
perhaps fickle in their religious fidelity, who are 
born to see visions and to dream dreams. Such 


72 ORIGINS AND FAITH 

races are the natural corrective of coarser material- 
ist peoples, and mingling with them give the spirit- 
ual perspective, the rarer atmosphere which invests 
the commonest hfe with finer meaning. Happy 
the people who draw the excellences of both from 
a dual ancestry! But when the fullest importance 
has been attached to spiritual impressions, there 
remains a constant wonder at the unbroken silence 
of God. The soul, restless with uncertainty, cries 
out: “ Lord, I believe; help Thou mine unbelief.” 
Two reasons may be alleged as the cause of His 
silence — He may be unable to communicate with 
us otherwise than under human conditions — the 
Word always made fiesh — or it may be necessary 
for our own uplifting that we search after God if 
haply we may find Him. Like travellers through 
an untracked forest land we pursue the path, 
guided by sun and stars, finding here a tree blazed, 
here a writing on a rock, which speaks of others 
who have passed this way before and have left 
their record as help. Meantime, we dream that we 
hear voices that encourage and footsteps that sug- 
gest hidden company. We say to ourselves, it is 
the voice of the Lord God walking amidst the 
trees of the garden. Presently we reach an emi- 
nence where we take stock of the future with the 
experience of the past. As we draw a chart of the 
way we have come, its windings, formerly meaning- 
less, group themselves into mystic letters, and we 
reahse that God has spoken in His providence. 


THE POWER OF GOD IN PRAYER 



\ 


Vi 

THE POWER OF GOD IN PRAYER 


I F this personal religion exists, as we have en- 
deavoured to set out, it reasonably follows that 
we must look for its maintenance and refresh- 
ment to that inspiration of the individual which we 
speak of as prayer. But prayer has been assailed 
more severely than any other exercise in the ritual 
of faith. We have been warned that it is un- 
scientific; it has been denounced as Objections to 
immoral. Why should we attempt Prayer, 
to alter the divine law, to change the intention 
of God, even if we had the power so to do? God 
must know better than man how to rule the world, 
and have fore-ordained the course of events for 
the greatest good of the greatest number. Any 
petition that we offer for a deviation in the will of 
God must be selfish in itself, because it is for the 
purpose of obtaining an advantage which implies a 
disadvantage to someone else. With our wider 
knowledge prayer becomes an anachronism. But 
it has been urged that surely we may pray for the 
good of others, and for a greater measure of spirit- 
ual power for ourselves. Gifts coming from the 
inexhaustible riches of God cannot affect the re- 
serves of Deity or impoverish anyone else. We 
may at least endeavour through prayer to bring our 
wills into harmony with the divine will without 
75 


76 


ORIGINS AND FAITH 


anticipating or seeking to alter His wise decisions. 
But these criticisms of prayer, so cold and correct, 
have not much restraining value in circumstances 
of great pressure or in times of unexpected crises. 
“ Lord, save me, I perish,’’ is the natural ejacula- 
tion of every sinking Peter. When the ship is in 
danger it is unnatural to find Jonah asleep in the 
The Instinct hold. The other shipmen are very 
of Prayer. much awake, calling each one 
upon Ms god. In great emergency we burst 
the bands of logic and resolve that there is One 
in the universe able to save. “ Yes,” it will be said, 
“ you may call upon your God, but the sMp will 
go down all the same.” Disaster or escape is deter- 
mined by circumstances out of reach of your own 
conduct. Besides, the laws of the universe will 
have their way sooner or later. You may save 
a man from a wreck to-day to die in his bed 
to-morrow. 

We only ask, however, for a divine power — 
to be exercised witMn limits — able to accom- 
modate us to circumstances rather than to abolish 
them. For instance, there are people who die 
unexpectedly with no realisation of death. Their 
passing is an euthanasia. For such people death 
never existed. Pain, grief, bereavement, may be 
modified so far as to mean different tMngs to 
different people. “ If that be possible,” continues 
our critic, would not a wise and kind Ruler reduce 
trouble to a minimum for all of us without the need 
of prayer? ” Could He not give us everything of 
the best, lengthen our stay to the point of human 
capacity, and run the river so low that when we 


THE POWER OF GOD IN PRAYER 


77 


came to its brink we should say; ‘‘ There is no 
river 

The forces through which the divine Fatherhood 
works, however, are at cross purposes with His own 
wishes. At times, it seems as if the advantage was 
only slightly in His favour. The improvement has 
to be tested in long lengths. Even if it be true that 
God knows our needs better than we know them 
ourselves, and encourages the unembarrassed ex- 
pression of our wants. He discriminates between 
the wise and unwise appeal. For us to be too care- 
ful in prayer, to exercise restraint, would be to cease 
to be real. The earnest uplook, the prayer of the 
heart, may be much more potent than we imagine. 
It may turn the scale in our favour; or, what is still 
more important, in favour of the right. One 
recruit, one addition to the fighting Prayer 
strength, in the moment of attack, as a Fighting 
may suffice by his moral vigour to Force, 
carry across that thin line which often separates 
victory from repulse. Dare we say that, with His 
soldiers active and strenuous, God is not stronger 
than if He had been left without their enthusiasm 
and assistance? Prayer is probably that very 
co-operation required for obtaining a result when 
success is hanging in the balance. There are 
reasons for increasing rather than diminishing our 
estimate of the dynamic of prayer. The religious 
instinct urges us to pray. Let us give way to it in 
the fullest sense. 

Answers to prayer are particularly unsatisfac- 
tory to the ordinary mind, and do not lend them- 
selves with advantage to public discussion, because 


78 


ORIGINS AND FAITH 


they are always open to cynical criticism. It is 
only the man himself who has been refreshed and 
helped who is the witness to its truth. The peevish 
objections which are raised against the usefulness 
of prayer are due to the treatment of it as a quack 
remedy, something to which we resort when we 
feel indisposed, and from which we expect all the 
good results that are set out in an advertised article. 
A man who begins to pray only when he is in 
trouble has no right to any immediate answer. He 
is in a hurry, but the heavens remain silent, and 
the world goes on as before. Then, hke a Pagan 
worshipper, who threatens his idol and turns its 
face to the wall, he abandons prayer in disgust 
because his telephonic summons fails to secure in- 
•pjjg stant attention. Prayer is a qual- 
Experience of ity of mind, to be acquired through 
Prayer. change of disposition, the forma- • 
tion of new habit; it is part of the religious outfit 
of man. When the prodigal is in a far country he 
does not begin by praying to his father but by 
speaking to himself. He resolves to extricate him- 
self from his present plight. He abandons his 
sordid past, resolutely turns away from old tempta- 
tions, and as he travels homewards repeats to him- 
self again and again the prayer which he proposes 
to offer when he meets his father. Whilst he is 
yet a great way off his father sees him and runs 
towards him. Then and not till then begins the 
intercourse of prayer. What tender influence, 
quickening of the imagination, suggestion from the 
father’s heart, may have reached the prodigal in 
the far land we know not ; but he himself ventures 


THE POWER OF GOD IN PRAYER 79 


to pray only when he has come into the atmosphere 
of home. It is actual contact with God which in- 
spires prayer. A man has not begun to pray when, 
sick with disappointment, he mutters some familiar 
verse, and feels half a mind to try religion after all. 
He wants to be extricated from trouble to which 
his own folly has committed him, one of those 
catastrophes in which friends desert and one’s own 
powers fail. He ought not to suppose that, to 
one lacking altogether in spiritual sympathy, 
mechanical results can be secured on a question and 
answer principle. Let such an one fling himself 
upon the mercy of God, and turn his face home- 
wards without expectation of immediate help or 
reinstatement. Presently he will enter into the true 
meaning of prayer and find its profit. 

There is no doubt that the sympathy between the 
human and the divine which prayer begets does clear 
the mental sight, and assist a man prayer an aid to 
to see things in their true outhne. sincerity. 

He learns neither to excuse nor to accuse himself 
unreasonably, but to think of himself soberly, as 
he ought to do. An abasement which loses all 
sense of proportion, and which encourages a man 
of spiritual feeling and decent life to rank himself 
with the worst of sinners, is abnormal, and threatens 
insincerity. But it is good for those with clean 
records to realise how easily it might have been 
otherwise, to be thankful for deliverance in tempta- 
tion, to confess that without the grace of God it 
would have been with them as it is with others. 
Patience is also a virtue incident to prayer. The 
restless spirit hurries from the Temple before the 


80 


ORIGINS AND FAITH 


vision has appeared, but the faithful worshipper 
waits for the answer until it comes. 

There is a materialism of the Protestant worship 
similar to the mechanical recitation of creed or 
prayer in the practice of other religions. We are 
all tempted to rely upon the regular performance 
of a duty as if that were a good in itself. No 
doubt the fixture of time and seasons creates a 
habit which assists us to concentrate thought. 
But private prayer, the family gathering, the 
ritual of the church, may lose vitality by very 
familiarity, and hardly arrest the attention, much 
less stir the emotions. The extemporised prayers 
of the Free Churches are not exempt from this 
danger. Instead of a spontaneous outbreak they 
Mechanical Can easily grow into a hardened 
Prayer. recital of phrasc and idea which 
the memory has supplied. To this prayer the 
congregation may be giving a courteous, though 
scarcely reverent, assent, followed by a sense of 
religious duty discharged, but without any anticipa- 
tion of a response to their requests. The prayer 
which is embodied in a hymn is sometimes the truest 
approach to supplication, because mated to music 
it awakens emotion and reinforces sentiment. But 
there is a message of peace for those who know how 
to wait. The Society of Friends has something to 
teach the Christian Church in those “ flashes of 
silence ” which give opportunity for the attentive 
soul. Public worship might be well prolonged for 
a few minutes in a sacred stillness, in preference 
to the hasty dismissal which so often concludes a 
solemn gathering. The Catholic practice of leav- 


THE POWER OF GOD IN PRAYER 


81 


ing the churches open for meditation at the disposal 
of any wayfarer might be extended to all others. 

Assuming the value of prayer, we must test its 
efficacy by difficult situations. A man, face to face 
with the perplexities of life, is justified in asking 
for light and leading in a complex situation. The 
step about to be taken may govern the rest of his 
days. In the first place, it is an advantage to state 
our own case clearly. We are compelled to be 
honest with ourselves in putting the circumstances 
to One Who can read the heart, and trace the 
motive. We realise for the first 
time, perhaps, the strength and the Real Answer 
weakness of our own case. We Prayer, 

state what we believe to be the facts; we add our 
personal wishes to them, and ask for guidance. A 
day, a week, a month may elapse; the road is not 
clear before us. The problem still remains. Chafe 
as we may at the delay, we must not go forward 
until the message comes. Then suddenly there 
breaks in upon the mind an illumination. We see 
the landscape as a whole in a flash of summer 
lightning. There is the right road before us. It is 
as if we had actually heard a voice : “ This is the 
way; walk ye in it.’’ And yet the solution may be 
simple enough. We had not seen it before, but 
with the larger outlook there is no mystery about 
it. It is our common sense reinforced and guided 
which commends it to us. A sceptical critic will 
tell us that it is our own subconscious thought. 
We had devolved the duty upon the subliminal 
self, and that faithful clerk, that “ fellow in the 
cellarage,” has returned us the sum duly worked 


ORIGINS AND FAITH 


8S 

out. But this hardly explains the impulse and 
direction given to the mechanism. The subhminal 
self is not so much the supporter of the conscious 
self as to be invariably right. For the intuition 
which breaks upon us is hke a leap of hght out of 
the dark. 

The prayer of the collectivist order, the public 
or common prayer, differs in some respects from 

Congregational the foregoing. But if the human 
Prayer. will, the individual aspiration, can 
render any assistance to God, there must be a special 
significance attached to gatherings of a concerted 
character. A body of people, moved by a common 
purpose, have greater power in their united action 
than through the accumulated effect of each unit 
working on its own account. It is the difference 
between a world of atoms extended into a gaseous 
cloud, or concentrated into a nucleus. There is a 
magnetism which proceeds from numbers. With a 
meeting stirred to its depths individual responsi- 
bility appears to merge in the personality of the 
crowd. The effect of this is sometimes doubtful. 
A whole assembly may break into flame against an 
individual who has not yet been fairly heard, or on 
behalf of a cause which owes its popularity to a 
purely partisan speech. The discordant cries, the 
passion which flies like spindrift, proceed from 
those who in ordinary life are moderate and reason- 
able. They have parted with self-control in 
the contagion of popular excitement, and with a 
lessened sense of personal responsibility surrender 
themselves to the elemental passions. The same 
voice cries “ hosamiah ” at the beginning of the 


THE POWER OF GOD IN PRAYER 


83 


week, and calls for “ crucifixion ” at the end of it. 
But this peculiar quality of the public gathering 
contributes its own value to the religious assembly. 
Though a man may plead that he can secure by 
meditation and retirement all that his soul desires, 
he overlooks the fact that he is called upon to con- 
tribute to the common stock of emotion. If the 
“ effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man avail- 
eth much,” the appeal from an assembly of such 
persons has a gathered value. Each strenuous soul 
has warmth to give and to get. There is a com- 
munion of saints as well as a communion with the 
Unseen. 

Any public speaker of experience will attribute 
a great part of the success of a meeting to his 
audience. TsTo voice may have broken the pro- 
prieties of the proceedings, but a subtle sympathy 
has either gone out to the speaker, or has been 
denied to him. That infiuence is necessary to 
draw from him his best work. It is the appre- 
ciation of the audience which co-operates in the 
deliverance of a speech. A few simple words, a 
cadence of voice, a pathetic incident, and a hush 
falls upon the assembly and tears gather in the 
eyes. Humour which vanishes in dull print is often 
brilliant on the platform. There is the first out- 
break of laughter, and the second outburst, like the 
roar of the shingle with the retreating wave. The 
eloquent speaker hardly realises the power at his 
disposal. A famous missioner may tell the same 
story again and again without loss of freshness. 
This power is akin to hypnotism, but it is not always 
the preacher that hypnotises. In the remarkable 


84 


ORIGINS AND FAITH 


revival movement in Wales it was often the con- 
gregation which broke out into ecstatic speech, 
regulating the order of praise and prayer as the 
power moved it. There are little inlets of the ocean 
which meander amongst green fields. Periodically 
these waters return to the ocean for fresh power, 
and then steal inland again under tidal pressure, 
murmuring the mysteries of the seas. 

That instinct which prompts a nation in times of 
disaster or at moments of victory to declare a fast 
or a feast is a true one. When it calls upon God 
for help, wears the sackcloth, or sounds the timbrel, 
it is driven by suggestions which have their expla- 
nation a little beyond the zone of human reason. 
With our Northern races and their pressing activ- 
ities the reflective side of religion has fallen into 
disfavour. Meditation imported 
Meditation. Christianity from the East has 

never penetrated far beyond the boundary of the 
Church, and it fell into disrepute at the Reforma- 
tion. There is the obvious danger that meditation 
may become a synonym for idleness, and that the 
monk entranced may be really growing lethargic. 
But there is no doubt that abstraction from the 
things of the world, in order to penetrate into the 
things of the Spirit, has served Catholicism as a 
corrective to its sacramental methods of organised 
salvation. The tenderness with which it has touched 
the austerity of the conventual life enriches the his- 
tory of religion. The mystic appears in every real 
form of faith, discovering fresh tokens of the divine 
presence, and translating that hidden life into the 
practical affairs of the day. The salt and strength 


THE POWER OF GOD IN PRAYER 85 

of Evangelicalism are found in this recognition of 
personal spiritual experience. Without this the 
Puritan theology would find it difficult to iustify 
itself. 

We discover in true prayer a divine power 
manifesting itself through us, rather than a human 
approach of the soul to God. When we are in the 
outer courts of the Temple our desires sometimes 
tend to convert the House of Prayer into a House 
of Merchandise, but in approaching the inner 
shrine we lend ourselves to the divine inspiration, 
and learn what it is to “ pray in the Holy Ghost.” 
Prayer therefore begins in the heart of God, and in 
passing through our consciousness we only give the 
thought verbal expression, and return it again to 
God. But if God’s kingdom is to come, and 
God’s will to be done on earth as in heaven, we 
cannot suppose that a merely pious expression on 
the part of the worshipper will be of much service. 
God will certainly bring in His kingdom as we 
believe in the shortest period of time. The very 
fact that we pray for such a kingdom indicates our 
willingness to co-operate with God, and suggests 
that co-operation has a distinct value of its own. 
God must be always working at His highest. 
Nothing is left by Him undone, but the perfection 
of His nature is consistent with His limitation. 
Therefore it is to be inferred that our contributory 
forces properly directed lend additional strength 
to the process of the divine evolution. He has 
brought us into being with the intention of work- 
ing through us, multiplying His powers through 
His creation of man. Virtually we ask Him to 


86 


ORIGINS AND FAITH 


accept our efforts, and to organise them for the 
same end. We pray that we may be fellow- workers 
with God. Thus we are adding to the divine 
strength something of our own, however minute 
individually. Every prayer embodied in a Hfe of 
service is an addition to the fighting forces of grace 
against Evil. The enrolment of individuals into 
His regiments and armies, societies and churches, 
is a mobilisation of the forces of God, a calling out 
of the reserves at His divine disposal. Therefore, 
men ought always to pray and not to faint. 


SECOND LIFE OR IMMORTALITY 





t 





VI 


SECOND LIFE OR IMMORTALITY 

T he interpretation of a providential dealing 
of God with man depends upon a moral 
government of this world. Are we limited 
to our present sphere of being, or do we require 
to construe one life through another? Is it possible 
that existence of an individual character can be 
prolonged beyond its earthly manifestation, or is 
it only a partial exhibition of a greater whole? Are 
we waves of a sea, lifted by the winds from its 
surface into crests that leap towards a heaven we 
can never reach, to sink back tired with the effort 
into a universal ocean from which they will never 
more be distinguished? If it be so, our birth ex- 
presses only a temporary individuality, our death 
a return to the parent whole. 

Immortality is a question quite distinct from 
that of a second existence which may be succeeded 
by others but in a terminable series. Second Life 

^ 1 and Immortality 

± or, it we are immortal, we belong contrasted. 

as much to the past as to the future. We assume 
antecedent life as well as future existence. But of 
that antecedent life we are not conscious. Memory 
gives us no help, unless, indeed, faint reminiscences, 
half realised intuitions, have any reference to an 
earlier experience. A modern metaphysician pro- 
fesses the belief in this antecedent life. He attrib- 
89 


90 


ORIGINS AND FAITH 


utes the sudden recognition of persons and objects, 
whom we have never before seen, as a suggestion 
of familiarity with a previous state of existence. 
But this surely is a shght basis upon which to build 
so weighty a conclusion, and even if these impres- 
sions prove to be correct, there is a much simpler 
solution of them. The brain with which we enter 
life equipped is mapped with the experience of our 
ancestors. Incidents which have left a strong im- 
pression on the mental apparatus of our forbears 
might surely be transmitted by heredity distinctly 
enough to awaken these dim associations. Partic- 
ularly would a woman before becoming a mother 
the more readily transmit a mental impression. 
The evidence of antecedent life is therefore so shght 
as to be practically neghgible. 

On the other hand, has anything of importance 
reached us from the world beyond? Would the 
. most convinced supporter of spirit- 

piri ua ism. ^ahsm assert that the information 
received through medium, planchette or unconscious 
writing, has enriched human knowledge or given 
us any hard facts which otherwise we could not 
have obtained? W^e are not required to impute 
conscious deception to the exponents of this cult 
by suggesting that its so-called messages from the 
dead may be explained for the most part by thought 
impressions conveyed by the living to the living. 
There is far more evidence in support of telepathy 
than on behalf of messages from the Unseen. Par- 
ticularly are these telepathic communications vivid 
when they pass at the moment of death. The 
planchette and unconscious writing are also capable 


SECOND LIFE OR IMMORTALITY 


91 


of subjective interpretation. In the case of an 
alleged successful medium, we may attribute the 
result of the subconscious influence of the inter- 
rogator upon the medium’s mind supplying the 
data upon which the answer is founded. Even 
where a promise to communicate after death has 
been made in good faith the supposed result is so 
unsatisfactory as to leave doubt upon the minds of 
the most expectant. But in putting aside these 
materialist communications we must be careful not 
to exclude those subjective impressions which give 
some of us confldence in the neighbourhood and 
affection of those who have passed beyond. It is 
no ghostly appearance which this assumes, no sud- 
den apparition, no chilling shadow; but it comes 
with a flash of warmth, like the Spring sunlight 
pouring into a room, raising the temperature with 
a sense of comfort and hope. To many it must 
seem that modern Spiritualism detracts from the 
dignity of a future life by destroying the conception 
of a profitable occupation of the departed spirits, 
who are liable to be called up by a ghostly telephone 
to suit the caprice of a human operator. 

Our own conscious experience contributes as little 
to a solution. However near to the end of life 
no man testifies to a clarifying of the beyond. If 
one be old, and in tolerable health, the desire to live 
is still beating strongly. A man may spend much 
of his time in the past, but he continues to be in- 
terested in the present. Not a hint reaches him as 
to what is to happen after death. Sometimes with 
lessened vitality there steals over the mind an acqui- 
escence in the close of existence, a satisfaction at 


92 


ORIGINS AND FAITH 


the allotment of a full age. Then, as infirmities 
increase, it is better to be done with life, better to 
lay it down deliberately than to chng to it pitiably. 
Under these circumstances, so the doctors tell us, 
they fail to get that co-operation of the patient 
which is the necessary condition of success in the 
contest with disease. On the other hand, where 
there is a strong desire to prolong life for some 
temporary purpose, even old age will refuse the 
first summons of the messenger, and the messenger 
temporises and waits upon its wishes. In excep- 
tional cases, at the moment of parting, there is 
a sudden gleam of hope, a flash-light into the 
darkness, as if a revelation of something beautiful 
beyond. But for the most part the last scene is 
only an incident in the long illness. It is one of 
several failures of strength, and from that faint 
there is no recovery. The interest of the dying 
is concentrated on the little details of the sick 
room, the position of the night-light, the time of 
the medicine. The veil of the future is as opaque 
on the last day of the illness as on the first. A 
strong repulsion to the idea of extinction is the 
prerogative of health and strength, a desire yet 
unsatisfied for more life, more work. But most 
people go short of their wishes in this world, and 
a craving for more is by no means a certainty of 
getting it. Our own contribution to human ex- 
istence appears important to ourselves, but is really 
of small comparative value. There are plenty 
around and behind us ready to take our places. 
It is fairly certain that physical existence comes 
to a close with the death of the body, and that 


SECOND LIFE OR IMMORTALITY 


93 


the form with which we have been so familiar ^vill 
be resolved sooner or later into its earthly con- 
stituents. There are no yawning graves, no seas 
with their multitudinous dead, to render up their 
prisoners at the sound of the trumpet. That re- 
uniting of soul and body, the parable of early Chris- 
tianity, has faued from modern thought. Now we 
know that we must part with the mortal, and put on 
immortality. In fact we are parting with it from 
hour to hour, and in the course of a fairly long life 
we have been re-born many times. There is no 
reason why the particular body arrested by the 
accident of death should be required in other devel- 
opments of existence. For it would be much easier 
to furnish the soul with new machinery. 

What, however, is that Ego which we assume 
exists when the body with the brain — the apparatus 
through which mind works — suf- Consciousness 
fers physical dissolution? The tern- and individuality, 
porary loss of consciousness does not interrupt in- 
dividuality. The remarkable phenomenon of sleep 
gives us proof of that. We part with consciousness 
every night and resume it every morning, although 
like a faithful friend and servant it tarries at the 
door during our time of repose lest we should 
suddenly want its assistance. But it is not idle 
meanwhile. Thought can proceed without the co- 
operation of our consciousness. Nor is the will 
supreme over the mechanism of the mind. W e can 
only recover some things that are locked away in 
the safe deposit of memory by slow and cautious 
application of the will. The animal below us in 
the scale of being possesses consciousness, and it 


94 


ORIGINS AND FAITH 


is only consciousness combined with reason which 
secures our supremacy. We assume something 
beyond the body and mind, tethered to them for 
a time yet independent. Little indeed we know 
about it. It may be only a tenant of the physical 
frame, withdrawing as it finds it worn out and 
useless. We ask ourselves whether it comes upon 
us like a fiood, a vital power driving the machine, 
part of that physical life we share with Nature. 
Are our mental qualities, our personal character- 
istics, really ourselves, or part of that common 
humanity to which we belong? Is the race an 
evolutionised development of the animal world 
which offers home to spirits finding discipline 
within it, or do we spring from the earthly 
altogether, beginning with the material and grow- 
ing into the spiritual? Have our spirits such an 
instinct of the divine that present existence, however 
Conditions of desirable, can never satisfy, and 
Second Life. will this homing instinct send us 
straight through trackless space to our final haven? 
Or shall we flutter into the Hands that made us, 
timid souls carried like caged birds through the 
interstellar darkness into new spheres of being? 
Around these questions all religion revolves. We 
have no remembrance of the past, no intuitions as 
to the future, no present message from the Unseen. 
We must, therefore, found our argument for a 
future life upon quite other considerations. First 
of all, we are concerned with the little information 
of a distinct character which is given to us even by 
a professed revelation. The fact of a second life 
has been asserted in no uncertain tone by nearly 


SECOND LIFE OR IMMORTALITY 


95 


every great faith, and not the least by Christianity. 
But the method of our passage from one sphere of 
being to another, the locality, the conditions, are 
still shrouded in the deepest mystery. The heaven 
of the ancients hung over them wrapt in the cobalt 
blue of day, lighted by the stars. The Hades was 
in the hollow earth, beneath that crust which 
moaned and shook with its restlessness. But to-day 
the place of rest or peace must be localised in 
shining worlds, one or many, whose light, travelling 
to us on winged feet, requires an appreciable time to 
cover the gulfs which separate us from them. It 
is useless to refine away this difficulty by professing 
heaven to be a state of existence rather than a 
place. It must have locality and circumstance. 
We are not to be unclothed, but clothed upon. Life 
may, therefore, be expected to become more intense 
and resourceful in its manifestations, richer and 
fuller. Fortunately, later Science is helping rather 
than retarding this idea. If thought can pass from 
mind to mind, there is a medium more subtle to be 
discovered that may prove an agency through which 
personality can travel and influences return at a 
speed as far exceeding light as that already exceeds 
lower forms of progression. At least we may claim 
that there is no impassable bar to the crossing of 
personality from one condition of physical existence 
to another. Very probably the picture of this new 
life, if revealed to us at present, would be distressing 
because it would be inexplicable. It would raise 
difficulties, and challenge inquiries, with which we 
are not called upon to deal. And if the revelation 
were of an attractive and desirable character, it 


96 


ORIGINS AND FAITH 


would distract our attention from commonplace 
duty, disturb our equanimity, and tempt us to 
become mere star-gazers for our remaining years. 
Our earliest experience of the new conditions will 
probably resolve them into the normal and reason- 
able. We shall not be permitted to bear the stress 
and shock of the journey alone when we are called 
upon to take it. The consideration which has 
nurtured us from the helpless moments of human 
existence cannot be supposed to fail at the 
close. 

It may be that we shall steal into a consciousness 
of the new life just as the earthly infant becomes 
accustomed to its present surroundings, passing 
step by step from the twihght of consciousness into 
a perfect intellectual apprehension. But we must 
not rely upon the fact of an estabhshed providence 
in the present world as an argument for a second. 
For God clothes the grass of the field, and cares 
for the cheap sparrow, neither of which we propose 
to credit with immortality. There are, however, 
other considerations of a much more potent charac- 
ter. The growth of the moral and spiritual nature 
frequently attains its highest perfection in this life 
at the very time when the physical is going to 
pieces, and its final ruin threatened. Is this bright 
light, a taper kindled at the central Sun itself, 
to be blown out on a windy night, quenched in some 
chance but never ending darkness, leaving only a 
stench of mortality behind? If it be true, as we 
have ventured to affirm, that God wants us in 
order to work through us, is it not possible, nay 
probable, that He will not throw the machine 


SECOND LIFE OR IMMORTALITY 


97 


aside at the moment when it has become the most 
useful medium for His divine purpose. If the 
future life were to be only; a calm receptiveness, 
green pastures and still waters, by the side of which 
the emancipated spirit should for ever remain in 
peace and quiet; if it were only a question of 
reward ; then we might hesitate as to its length and 
value. But surely the ideal of our future is some- 
thing far higher than this. The rest is to recuperate 
for fresh work, for dangers it may be. The green 
pastures and the still waters are to prepare for 
further service. Our next table will be spread in 
the wilderness, in the very presence of our enemies. 
There are outposts of danger, fresh battle cries 
to be raised, ministering service to be rendered, 
better than harps and crowns. There remaineth 
a rest to the people of God, a triumph, a parade 
day, when full uniform is worn, and ‘the medals 
are affixed ; but, on the day after, there is the drab 
khaki, and the active service. For we are called 
upon to take part in a great cosmic plan which God 
is composing, and why should we limit it to this 
particular section of the vast whole? Considering 
the short time at our disposal even this world is 
not too much with us. Here or elsewhere there 
is so much to do. So the Founder of Christianity, 
Whose intuitions were divine, warns us against 
confining our treasure to earth, and invites us to an 
investment of character and purpose, a treasure 
of the heavens which He Himself guarantees. 
Consequently, we find this earth becoming like the 
wayside inn from which our companions one by 
one steal away, and we, having settled our account. 


98 ORIGINS AND FAITH 

must not be unwilling to go, hoping to find a better 
beyond. 

If there is a moral government of this world, a 
second fife under conditions comparable to our 

Argument from own is certainly demanded. The 
moral government, difference of opportunity, the 
varieties of temperament, the inequalities of cir- 
cumstance, powerfully suggest a further period of 
moral probation. One man by benefit of heredity 
and environment is fitted to a body admirable for 
his purpose. Another starts debased and diseased. 
Human society applies roughly the same standard 
to the one as to the other, exacts no more obedience 
to its law from the well found than from the 
maimed life. In the one case the man is governed 
by an instinct of order, a tradition of law; he is 
born into the purple, into the position of a ruler. 
The other man from the dawn of reason to the 
day of his death maintains with inefficient powers 
a struggle with evil instincts, and unfriendy sur- 
roundings. The law of Evolution involves these 
differences. A few in every generation must be 
better than the rest. They are outrunners, first 
waves that announce the rising of the tide ; the rest, 
following slowly and painfully, draw up to the same 
level. Apart from moral leadership the pleasures 
of life are more evenly distributed. For morality 
does not necessarily mean happiness. The air 
of the peak is colder than the valley, and he who 
reaches the higher position loses companionship 
as he ascends, and grows lonely. Contentment will 
easily adapt a man to imperfect conditions. But 
given a second period of probation a great part 


SECOND LIFE OR IMMORTALITY 


99 


of the difficulty disappears. Faithful service under 
temporary disability is afterwards rewarded by 
larger opportunity. The fidelity of the servant 
who is true in the little shall be requited by responsi- 
bility for the much. The second period acts as a 
corrective to the first. 

Protestantism has involved itself in much diffi- 
culty by its abrupt dismissal of this theory. There 
is no reason why it should not have Protestantism 
retained a second period of pro- and 

bation within the limits of its Probation. 
Puritan doctrine. The misuse of the doctrine 
before the Reformation in the Catholic practice of 
selling masses for the dead did not really touch the 
question of its truth and usefulness. The result 
was that Protestantism crudely divided humanity 
into the good and the bad, and upon the accident 
of death harshly apportioned to them an eternal 
heaven or hell. This left the reformed faith to 
face the problem of a second life in a sense contrary 
to the spirit, if not to the letter, of its own Scrip- 
tures. That Protestantism which found its active 
expression in Calvinism is responsible for this irra- 
tional teaching of a fixed and final fate. It even 
went farther, and divided the living into the 
category of saved and unsaved, a condition from 
which there was no escape. A divine foreknowl- 
edge had determined the future of every human 
being before it came into the world. One was a 
vessel destined for destruction. No piety, no faith, 
no good work availed to that wretched being who 
was created only to be rejected, and whose very 
suffering, beyond power of mitigation, or finality. 


100 


ORIGINS AND FAITH 


was supposed to magnify God, and to increase the 
glory of the redeemed. On the other hand, there 
were those from the beginning destined to salvation, 
who could never perish, who were never suffered to 
sin irremediably, and who might confidently read 
in anticipation their title clear to mansions in the 
skies. Yet every day they mingled with their 
fellow men, indistinguishable from themselves in 
virtue and conduct, nevertheless hopelessly excluded 
from an after-life of blessing. Such a doctrine has 
been familiar to many still living, and in obscure 
parts of the country it survives to pervert the intel- 
lect, and to distort religion. But even where an 
enlightened conscience has rejected this extreme 
view, there lingers the idea that, as conversion is 
possible to all, and salvation freely offered, there 
can only remain as the penalty of rejection an 
eternity of suffering. 

We can hardly suppose that a continuation of 
existence could essentially alter the moral relation- 
ship of the individual to great spiritual principles. 
Still shall we be masters of our own souls, and no 
compulsion could change our will, or purify our 
desires. Still shall we have relationship to One 
not less gracious and merciful than He has shown 
Himself in this life. The fire shall try every man’s 
work of what sort it is, and even judgment must 
begin at the House of God. 

It is evident that immortality through a succes- 
sion of lives granted to the same personality involves 
a different question. If God wants us He will 
keep us. If we are fellow workers with Him in 
a cosmic trades union, we shall receive its ad- 


SECOND LIFE OR IMMORTALITY 101 


vantages as long as we accept its responsibilities. 
The gift of God is eternal life, and that life we are 
assured is hid with Christ in God. But it is 
possible, fearfully so, that, if there be a different 
authority, a darker purpose, to be found in this 
universe, we may pass under its power so far as 
to be unable to return. The agony of separation 
from Eternal Goodness will be intensified by the 
last cry after our lost souls, the last look of yearn- 
ing pity that reaches us; and the suffering of re- 
morse will only cease in the gradual identification 
of ourselves with Evil, in a contentment in its 
service, in an entrance into the joy of that foreign 
overlord. 



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REDEMPTION THROUGH 
ATONEMENT 




VII 


REDEMPTION THROUGH 
ATONEMENT 

W E can trace the doctrine of Atonement 
which plays so great a part in Evangel- 
ical teaching through Anselm to Augus- 
tine, and again backwards to the Jewish teachers 
of Christianity. The apostolic duty to the early 
Church was a difficult one. It was bound to recon- 
cile the person and work of Jesus Christ with the 
ancient Hebrew faith, and at the same time to 
throw open wide the door to Gentile converts. 
The ceremonial religion of the past was not to be 
binding upon that new world which was eager to 
receive Christianity for itself. In a little time that 
ceremonial came to an abrupt conclusion. The 
altar on Mount Zion was destroyed, the sacrificial 
flame trodden out under the rough heel of the 
heathen. If Calvary was a full and sufficient 
oblation, then the divine order of Jewish Ritual 
the Jewish Church had become and 

fulfilled once for all in Christ. Christian Faith. 
By subtle argument the Christian teacher sought 
to prove that the long centuries of altar worship 
stood for a symbol only of the pure and unblemished 
offering of the soul and body of the Christ to His 
Father; and that suffering was for the sin of the 
whole world. The connection between this central 
106 


106 


ORIGINS AND FAITH 


fact of Christianity and Hebrew worship is not 
as clear to us as it was to Jewish converts. The 
Temple sacrifice was a purely national worship 
in which the outer world had no part. The 
universal system of sacrifice no doubt implies 
a sense of sin, a desire to propitiate, a need 
of forgiveness. By the symbolism of the animal 
sacrifice there is a confession of deserved punish- 
ment, but the appeal is to divine forgiveness, which, 
after a due acknowledgment of the sin as set out 
in the symbolic act, could be freely exercised 
towards a repentant sinner. This does not carry 
with it the belief that the sacrifice is adequate, or is 
a satisfaction for the offence other than as a sign of 
repentance towards God. Where substitution en- 
ters into the thought it forms part of the punish- 
ment, as in the case of the offering of the first-born ; 
but the wrong done to the innocent victim creates a 
new offence, and outrages the natural sense of 
justice. There is also the significant omission from 
the teaching of Jesus Christ of any definite doctrine 
Christ’s Doctrine of a substituted and expiatory 
of the Blood, sacrifice. If this had constituted 
the primary fact of His suffering, its real sig- 
nificance, it would certainly have secured a place 
at the very centre of His teaching. His few 
references to the shedding of His own blood for the 
remission of sins cannot he separated from the 
interpretation which He Himself put upon them. 
“ Except ye eat the flesh and drink the blood of the 
Son of Man ye have no life in you.” The dominant 
declaration of His own gospel was that He had 
come into the world to give eternal life. That life 


REDEMPTION THROUGH ATONEMENT 107 


was the gift of God. For “ God so loved the world 
that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever 
belie veth in Him should not perish but have eternal 
hfe.” The remission of penalty, or the consequence 
of sin, does not therefore depend upon the fact of 
Christ’s death, but is obtained through the incor- 
poration of His own life with the life of the human 
soul. Yet the new life which, assimilated by the 
world, will eventually conquer sin comes to us 
through the shedding of His own blood, and we 
are further told that without shedding of blood 
there is no remission. Before we seek a reasonable 
explanation of this statement, let us look at the 
Evangelical gospel of substitution, or of satisfac- 
tion, which has been imposed upon the Christian 
consciousness for so long a period. The earliest 
explanation of it given is in the doctrine that God 
has condemned all men to eternal death, either on 
account of the sin of the race, which they share 
federally with others, or because inherited suscepti- 
bihty has betrayed all men into sin which deserves 
punishment. It takes no account of responsibility 
for the evil or of the varying conditions under which 
men may be drawn into sin. Jesus Christ, as the 
Son of God, was able to pay the full penalty of 
sin in His suffering on the Cross, and the extent 
of His offering suffices for the whole world, past, 
present, and future. The sinner who appropriates 
to himself by faith in Jesus that sacrifice is accepted 
in the Son. But later we have as an alternative 
another theory, that God does not demand a full 
penalty, but requires the vindication of His holiness 
by one typical act of reparation, stupendous in its 


108 


ORIGINS AND FAITH 


character, which should arrest the attention of the 
world, and teach every man the measure of that 
guilt from which the grace of God alone can set 
him free. These two theories have been pressed 
upon our acceptance by external authority. There 
The is no such answer in the human 

older Evangelical heart, no common instinct which. 
Doctrines. apart from an inspired statement, 
would acknowledge the justice of a substituted 
victim, or the necessity for such a vindication of 
the holiness of God 'as the suffering of His Son 
for the sin of the world. We are, therefore, justi- 
fied in demanding that the external authority shall 
be of an undeniable character, if either of these 
doctrines is to form part of the Christianity of 
to-day. We cannot profess to rely altogether upon 
certain passages in the Epistles which are more or 
less directly concerned with the reconciliation of 
the Jewish and Christian faiths, unless the gospel 
Gospels records give confirmatory evidence, 

and Epistles How Can we account for the 
contrasted. omission of these theories of 

redemption from the most touching and telling 
parables of Jesus Christ? Repentance is the one 
condition of restitution to the favour of God. The 
son in the far country is yet a great way off when 
his father sees him, and that father runs to meet 
him halfway, smothers the very confession of sin 
with his tender embraces, and exclaims : “ This my 
son was dead and is alive again ; he was lost and is 
found.” The strayed sheep is sought by the 
shepherd and restored to the fold without condi- 
tions. The Son of Man hath power on earth to 


REDEMPTION THROUGH ATONEMENT 109 

forgive sin. That was clearly a commission which 
Jesus Christ believed that He had received from 
His Father. He could not have counted upon the 
efficacy of His coming death; for He would surely 
have made some reference to it in the act of absolu- 
tion. Her sins which are many are all forgiven 
her; for she loved much — repentance, remission, re- 
turn. “ If thou wouldst enter into life keep the 
Commandments.” “ What doth the Lord require 
of thee, but to do justly, to love mercy, and to 
walk humbly with thy God?” More than all, in 
the Lord’s Prayer itself that authentic form of 
words left by the Lord to His disciples, with the 
full knowledge that they would continue to use it 
after His death, there is nothing attached to the 
forgiveness of sin except the condition that we must 
in like manner forgive our brother. Here if any- 
where we should expect to find a clear definition 
of redemption through sacrifice, but the analogy 
introduced into the prayer completely excludes 
such an idea. Nor is there any real value in the 
argument that we have the testimony of many 
thousands who have believed in Christ as their 
sacrifice, and have found peace in God through that 
belief. Such a happy realisation of forgiveness is 
not necessarily conditioned by the intellectual form 
of its reception. That victory which overcometh 
the world is a sense of union with God, of new-born 
strength of resolution which enables us to become 
as little children, starting afresh in the dawn of 
better things with the sunlight on our faces. 
Before Jesus Christ lived and died in history, there 
was the same deep sense of sin, the cry of the 


110 


ORIGINS AND FAITH 


burdened heart, the gratitude and glory of forgive- 
ness. The historical knowledge of Jesus Christ is 
not a necessary condition to the reception of that 
Christ of the soul Who appeals to every man that 
comes into the world. The guilt of humanity 
deeply dyed, as often it is, is yet measurable and 
forgivable, though it deserves, and sometimes re- 
ceives, an appropriate punishment. After all, man- 
kind has come into the world, vexed with cross 
currents, with complexities of Good and Evil, which 
make the exact apportionment of just judgment a 
matter for the nicely-poised scales of a Supreme 
Justice. We must take a broader view of the 
problem of redemption to discover its meaning. 
God is the God of the great universe, and He 
would not have singled out one little planet for 
His divine favour. The doctrine of Redemption is 
A Cosmic view bound to have a cosmic significance, 
of The Evil which opposes God, as 

Redemption. have Suggested elsewhere, works 
for disintegration, arrests the march of Evolution, 
decomposes man into the dust from which he was 
quickened. The divine begetting of His own 
nature into perpetual Sonship is in order that the 
creature shall not perish; that is to say, shall not 
follow the course designed for him by the competing 
Evil, but shall have the right to enter upon new life, 
that eternal life of God through belief, or identity 
with, His eternal Son. Death and life are here 
placed in opposition. Evil is the source of dis- 
integration and consequent death to body and tq 
soul alike. The redemption of the body is only 
in process of accomplishment. In the splendid 


REDEMPTION THROUGH ATONEMENT 111 


imagery of the New Testament the whole creation 
is groaning and travailing in pain for that event. 
Hence eternal life has yet to fulfil its ultimate 
object of delivering us from the pangs and disorder 
of dissolution. But we can be saved from those 
bitterer pangs of eternal death even though Evil 
has obtained partial control over our spiritual 
nature. Through the eternal Sonship we may 
become so far at one with God as to triumph at the 
very moment of the victory of the grave. It is 
tliis At-one-ment with an everlasting Christ which 
secures the uprising of the spirit both here and 
hereafter. This vast work, however, is not accom- 
plished in any part of His universe simply by an 
act of the will of the divine Being; for if so we 
had never found ourselves in a world fraught with 
temptation and trouble. It means suffering, sacri- 
fice, an Eternal Passion of God, a Lamb slain from 
the beginning of the worlds. Redemption is not a 
desire or an example of better things to be taken as 
our pattern, and to be followed; it is the very union 
of God with our souls. His entry gives light, 
creates new joy, and also begins the long struggle. 
We are not saved without effort, pain, self-denial 
on our part. It is Christ who carries the heavy 
cross, but we follow with our own. He bears the 
brunt of the attack upon our souls, never so fierce 
and desperate as when those souls are about to 
escape from the dominion of Evil. God in His 
holiness must have a far more acute realisation of 
sin than can be brought home to any human con- 
sciousness. He looks with loathing into those black 
gulfs which we have never fathomed. In coming 


112 


ORIGINS AND FAITH 


into contact with Evil in us and for us He suffers 
its horror, and throbs with the detestation of it. He 
thought it necessary to erect a Calvary in the middle 
of history which should reveal to all time the appal- 
hng mystery of Evil and the suffering of the purest 
and best in the salvation of humanity. The Cross 
is therefore a parable of that redemption which the 
eternal Son of the Father manifested through the 
person of Jesus of Nazareth, and which He is ever 
accomplishing for our world, and for others simi- 
larly conditioned. For to save is to suffer, as we 
shall presently understand. At eventide there will 
be light. Against that evening sky there is a Cross 
— see there are three Crosses — God and humanity 
are suffering together. In this sense the forgive- 
ness of sins is dependent upon redemption, because 
without that redemptive force working in us, and 
accepted by us, we could not feel true penitence nor 
respond to the appeal of our Father Who is longing 
for our return. It was the father’s love still flicker- 
ing in the heart of the prodigal son, “ my father ” 
still amidst the swine and husks, which bade him 
“ take with him words ” and come home. “ If ye 
being evil know how to give good gifts unto your 
children, how much more shall your heavenly Father 
give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him.” The 
Atonement, the one great barrier between us and 
everlasting failure, though the gift of God, may be 
regarded as an act of justice to mankind as well as 
of God’s love for them. Let us not fall back upon 
the false idea of God’s omnipotence, or the sugges- 
tion that a lost soul would be a failure which He 
could not tolerate. There are sufficient failures in 


REDEMPTION THROUGH ATONEMENT 113 


nature, superfluities of creative power, to warn 
us against false confldence in that respect. Nor 
can we claim a prolonged future upon natural 
grounds as we have already discussed. There is 
no inherent “ right to live.” But we come to the 
conclusion that forgiveness of sins and redemption 
by Atonement are correlative, but not coincident, 
doctrines. The one great need of the soul is de- 
liverance from Evil. “ Lead us not into tempta- 
tion ” is a qualified prayer. We know that we shall 
have to encounter it sooner or later in the discipline 
of our souls ; but we may pray against it as against 
sickness or death, though both will surely arrive. 
But “ deliver us from evil ” is an unquahfied peti- 
tion. To the early Church, the world was an ac- 
complice of the Evil One. That Distrust of 
fear of the world which we regard the World a 
to-day with our broader views of half-truth, 
life to be ascetic, and almost morbid, was prompted 
by the fact that Evil disguised under a fair mask 
is far more dangerous, because it comes to us ac- 
companied by so much that is admirable, attractive, 
or at its worst, seductive. It is the mingling of 
Good and Evil in human flesh and in the world 
around which constitutes the danger. For the 
world is, after all, a good thing enjoyed but not 
abused. “ Love not the world, neither the things 
which are in the world,” exclaims the shrinking 
apostle. “ I pray not that Thou shouldest take 
them out of the world, but that Thou shouldest 
keep them from Evil ” is the utterance of his Master. 
The world cannot be saved from putrefaction with- 
out the salt of good li^dng. It is indeed a God- 


114 


ORIGINS AND FAITH 


forsaken Sodom in which even one righteous man 
cannot find an atmosphere, an opportunity, through 
which infectious goodness may spread. God comes 
into humanity at its darkest point in order to save. 
He sees His own cliild playing upon the edge of 
the volcano, or within range of the cruel teeth of 
that inexorable machine which grinds out the con- 
sequences of evil doing, and, realising the result 
that is threatened, regardless of risk, plunges for- 
ward in rescue. The disciples would understand 
the meaning of His words, “ He that hath seen Me 
hath seen the Father,” when they comprehended 
that it was the Father’s suffering through the eter- 
nal ^onship in Christ which saves. The termi- 
nology of the Jewish faith was used freely in the 
new Christian doctrine. The blood was the fife, 
and the blood of Christ was therefore symbolical of 
the life of Christ which cleanses from all sin, as the 
blood of a healthy subject transfused into the veins 
of the dying will revive from physical death. The 
blood cleanses in this instance because its microbic 
life lolls the bacilli of disease, and the anaemic sub- 
ject becomes a new creature. It is not possible for 
us to determine how far Jesus Christ in His human- 
ity realised the sacrificial character of this divine 
suffering. The consciousness which He shared with 
His Father must have given Him an insight into it. 
There is certainly much more in the account of the 
Christ upon His crucifixion than that of a Teacher 
Cross. enduring death for the sake of His 
message. But His mind was not altogether con- 
centrated upon one great act of sacrifice with the 
Avhole world for the altar stone. He showed a 


REDEMPTION THROUGH ATONEMENT 115 


pathetic interest in the details of His surroundings. 
He commits His mother to the care of the beloved 
J ohn ; He holds a brief conversation with the thief 
on the adjoining cross; He gives expression to His 
sufferings from the torment of thirst. His final 
ejaculation, “ It is finished,” could have applied as 
much to His long drawn agony as to any great ex- 
piatory act. It is only in the words, “ My God, 
My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me? ” that any 
reference can be found to an abyss of despair in 
which he felt Himself separated from God. But 
is it not equally possible that He really anticipated 
a declaration from His Father, some manifestation 
of God out of the overshadowing darkness, which 
should have declared that “ This is indeed My be- 
loved Son,” before He gave up His spirit into the 
hands of that Father? A few hours previously, 
during His passion in the garden, He had told His 
disciples that He could command, if He desired it, 
more than twelve legions of angels. Had that de- 
sire wrung from Him by the awful strain of the 
crucifixion failed to obtain the response He had ex- 
pected? In the sudden darkness of the sky had His 
own spirit felt the obscurity for a few brief mo- 
ments, so that He lost hold on the consciousness of 
His own divinity, and became a simple Jewish 
artisan dying for a lost cause? 

The first disciples attached an importance to the 
Resurrection which for a time overshadowed the 
meaning of Christ’s death. It was on that first day 
of the week that their attention was almost wholly 
concentrated. It was a triumph over death which 
they celebrated, not a mystic submission to it. 


116 


ORIGINS AND FAITH 


But the Cross of Christ has assumed a proportion 
and glory in after time which subordinates every 
other doctrine to itself. Just as the Incarnation is 
the symbol of a cosmic fact, the existence of God, 
as Godhead finding speech under the hmitation of 
human conditions, so the death of Christ symbolised 
to all succeeding time the vaster fact of eternal suf- 
fering in the deliverance of humanity, nay, of the 
whole creation, from the power of Evil. As we 
speak of Jesus Christ as God in the sense that He 
manifested the eternal Sonship on earth for a time, 
and we reach through Him to the vaster Existence 
lying behind, so we speak of the death of Christ as 
saving us, not because in itself it constitutes salva- 
tion, but as the manifestation of the greater truth, 
which we might never have fully understood unless 
it had been presented to us in this concrete and 
limited form. Man can no longer complain that he 
has been begotten into an impossible situation, with 
heredities and affinities which are his tyrants, so 
long as it is true that where sin abounded grace does 
yet more abound; and other worlds and other scales 
of being require their Christs, through Whom the 
eternal Son must work according to the nature and 
receptiveness of those to whom He brings a like 
salvation. 



r 

h 


;l 

\ 

V., 

I 

I 




l' 







VIII 


INSPIRED SCRIPTURES 

W E find that there is a place for religion 
in the interpretation of the universe to 
mankind. Amongst the expositions of 
the religious instinct Christianity holds the lead- 
ing position. Besides the philosophic basis which 
Christianity shares with other forms of faith, it 
claims authority through a traditional organisa- 
tion. This obtains living expression in the Church 
of to-day as well as in the sacred writings. These 
writings it can only fully verify by a spiritual ex- 
perience, though some of its members prefer a 
“ sure word of prophecy ” to a “ vision in the holy 
mount,” and hold that our belief should be deter- 
mined by the thoughts of others rather than by our 
own freshly wrought conclusions. Be that as it 
may, the authority of sacred writings gathers in 
proportion to their age. Distance Growth 
invests an object with mystery, of Authority, 
softens its rugged edges, and conceals its inequal- 
ities. So an ancient scripture, like a range of moun- 
tains which appeared separated and disconnected 
when near at hand, presents only soft curves and 
sublime peaks against a distant sky. To each suc- 
ceeding generation the roll of testimony grows 
longer, and a faith “ once delivered to the saints,” 
and yet again delivered, becomes invested with an 
119 


120 


ORIGINS AND FAITH 


accumulated claim upon obedience. Yet there must 
always come a time when we are bound to go back 
to first credentials, to place ourselves in the position 
of the people to whom the Book originally came. 
Why has this psalmist, prophet, or preacher sur- 
vived, whilst other contemporary voices have died 
into silence? 

In old times there was an importance attributed 
to a statement committed to writing. Our modern 
system of scribbling a note at any moment, upon 
any subject, together with the multiplication of 
copies, has robbed the written word of the awe which 
belonged to an age of deliberate writing. Far 
back in liistory we find it enshrined in a king’s 
palace, preserved on obelisk or temple. The warn- 
ing to Belshazzar ran naturally along the cornice 
of the hall of festivities. For probably much else 
of a pious and hortatory character had already 
found place there. The Babylonian not only burnt 
his sacred writings into brick, but he preserved in 
the public library of the city important commercial 
contracts. 

In ages when little was committed to writing, the 
tablets of the memory were trusted more fully than 
with us who relieve ourselves of mental attention, 
as soon as possible, by mechanical assistance. The 
prophet or the seer would have to obtain consider- 
able popularity before his writing was committed 
to a permanent record. It was only the greatly 
honoured whose literary works were preserved 
amongst the scrolls of a library. From this selec- 
tion a few survived, to be recopied into a literary 
immortality. There are references in the Bible it- 


INSPIRED SCRIPTURES 


121 


self to books of importance to their contemporaries 
which are lost to us. Similar misfortunes have 
overtaken much of the classic writing of antiquity, 
though now and again the archaeologist recovers 
from an Eastern monastery, or from an Egyptian 
tomb, some treasure of the past. The prophets were 
not solitary peaks, cloud-capped and awful, rising 
high above the plain of human experience. They 
were part of a mountain range foreshortened to the 
spectator, who in order to identify them required to 
have one and another distinguished amongst the 
maze of heights. To their contemporaries they 
rarely stand out pre-eminently. “ His mother and 
His brethren, are they not with us? ’’ is repeatedly 
spoken of every new teacher. In our own time, it 
takes years to recognise the new poet who will rank 
at last amongst the immortals. Wordsworth was 
one amongst others whom contemporary judgment 
regarded as httle inferior to him. Yet where are 
those others to-day? Perspective is one of the most 
important conditions of reputation. There are men 
hving to whom Tennyson was once a minor poet, a 
lark fluttering above the grasses, not soaring into 
the heart of the blue; and Browning was left to 
the discipleship of a few enamoured followers. 
Amongst the many prophets of Israel there were 
the fashionable preachers of their day, appealing by 
their ready quahties to an instant appreciation. 
They had their reward; whilst the great thinkers 
and reformers roamed the by-ways sometimes 
noticed, often shunned. So it has happened that 
a book, now sacred, has not reached that seat of au- 
thority, a place in the canon, until its author, de- 


122 ORIGINS AND FAITH 

spised and rejected, had passed beyond human 
praise and blame. Such delay, at any rate, secured 
fairer judgment; it cleared the court of personal 
bias. The generation that pronounced the verdict 
dealt with the pierit of the work alone. Whatever 
might have been the reputation of the intellectual 
and literary class, the prophets could never have 
The popular verdict laid hold upon the afPections of the 
in the Canon, nation if the rough judgment of 
the common people had not really determined their 
authority. When a popular movement became ir- 
resistible, Rabbi and Scribe would declare the work 
to be of God. 

No doubt the historical parts of the Old Testa- 
ment owe their present form to revision and editor- 
ship. But we must assume that if they had not cor- 
responded in their main features to the history 
which the Jew traditionally carried in his mind there 
would have grown up a second Bible, and we should 
have had the two versions side by side, the one in 
popular form, the other for the learned classes. It 
is evident that the oral tradition corresponded to 
the written tradition, and the fact that no other 
version was called for contributes to establish the 
authenticity of the Hebrew canon in the popular 
estimate. But if the historical accuracy of the re- 
corded movements of the Hebrew race from Abra- 
ham downwards were established, the moral in- 
fluence attributed to them by the elect people need 
not govern the conduct of to-day. The narrowness 
of the teaching, the provincial character of the 
ideals, repel the modern thinker. The strange in- 
terweaving of spiritual emotion with doubtful 


INSPIRED SCRIPTURES 


123 


morality diminishes its ethical value for him. He 
acknowledges the archaeological interest, but resists 
the theological authority. 

The testimony of monumental discoveries has 
considerably modified the criticism directed against 
the age and accuracy of Hebrew scriptures. The 
discovery of phonetic writing at an earlier date 
than formerly accepted, the identification of the 
common tongue of the Canaanite and the Jew, 
prove that we are not bound to hieroglyphic or 
ideographic systems at the time of the Exodus or 
earlier. The story of a desert-wandering of a na- 
tion of escaped slaves was a tradition for which 
there was no demand, and if doubtful it would have 
been corrected by some other competing tradition. 
The Maori has his annals of pilgrimage from island 
to island across the Pacific when he emigrated from 
the original source of his race. There is no reason 
to doubt the truth of this tradition, though he had 
neither a Moses nor a Pentateuch to register an 
Exodus, which must at least have dated back many 
centuries. 

Protestantism owes much of its robust character 
to the Old Testament. The spirit and temper of 
the Puritan were more in accord Relation of the 
wdth that of the Jew than with that Old Testament to 
of the Gentile Christian. The Christianity, 
ferocity in battle of those desert-bred clans, their 
harsh justice, their cruelty to aliens, is reproduced 
in the religious wars which broke out upon the 
Reformation. Wild chants of victory, bitter curses 
on enemies, break like thunder across the solemn 
music of the Psalms. They cannot be said to be 


124 


ORIGINS AND FAITH 


sympathetic with the spirit of Christianity. Yet if 
we were to deprive ourselves of the contribution 
which the Old Testament has made to our religious 
hfe we should be at once sensible of a loss in warmth 
and colour. History is too pale a shadow moving 
through a dim past to enable us to learn the lesson 
of an intelligent Power to be discovered in the 
march of armies and in the fate of empires. But in 
this handful of Jews we may compare the passionate 
belief of the people in their own God and destiny 
with the circumstances of their national life. The 
theory of the theocracy did not permit an extension 
of empire deep into neighbouring nations. At the 
most the Jews might keep in vassalage the hated 
Edom and Moab, or cast their outposts as far as 
Damascus and Tyre. To go farther would have 
been to raise a problem of empire too vast for them. 
They might have been overpowered by the strange 
blood and stranger gods of their new confederates. 
They were therefore restricted to their little moun- 
tain country, bounded by the wilderness on the 
south, without a port of any value for commercial 
expansion until they reached the gulf of Akabar. 
They lay just within the tract of contending armies, 
a buffer state between Egypt and the empires of 
the Tigris and of the Euphrates. They could not 
expect liberty to work out their own political his- 
tory, or to escape from becoming the victims or the 
tools of one or other of their huge neighbours. 
Their story reads like the anecdote of some confid- 
ing bird which raises its young upon a battlefield, 
or plants its nest upon the axle of a carriage. There 
are highland spaces in the world where the problem 


INSPIRED SCRIPTURES 


125 


of a theocracy might have been tried uncrossed by 
hostile forces; but the Land of Promise is but a 
ledge on the seaboard of Syria, small as a miniature 
Greek state, or as our own principality of Wales. 
The experiment of an elect people The 
under the direct government of Elect People. 
Deity was made with a race exposed to every wind 
that blew, enslaved by Egypt or by Babylon, se- 
duced by the Greek, threatened by the Roman. 
At last it was scattered far and wide, distributed 
amongst the nations, harried by persecution. Yet 
this race has maintained its substantial unity in 
face of every diversity of fortune. Its hope is 
inextinguishable. If the people cannot return to 
Jerusalem this year they will wait for the next. 
Their confidence remains unimpaired during long 
periods of national disaster. One can understand a 
belief in special divine favour during the victories 
of a David, the splendour of a Solomon, or the 
deliverance of a Hezekiah ; but the world has never 
seen such a triumph of faith as that which has sur- 
vived the quenching of the glores of the Maccabees, 
the final fall of Jerusalem with the bankruptcy of 
the national hopes. But the historical importance 
of the Old Testament by no means exhausts its 
practical value to Christian life. The deepest emo- 
tions, the most difficult questioning, find expression 
and consolation in that manual of piety, the Psalms, 
and their kindred writings. For tenderness, pathos, 
and sublimity they are unrivalled. Whilst the J ew- 
ish ritual and dogmatic teaching have lost their hold 
upon the conscience of to-day, we use the Psalms 
upon our pilgrim way, and share with the Jew in 


126 


ORIGINS AND FAITH 


that thirst for God, the living God, which gave 
vitahty to his rehgion. 

The condition of the divine government de- 
pended upon the moral assent and obedience of the 
Jew to the Law. His co-operation was necessary to 
the fulfilment of the theocratic ideal. Warnings re- 
peated foretold disaster if he failed in that condi- 
tion. The divine choice depended upon his fidelity 
to his intense monotheism. Wealth, learning, lux- 
ury, beckoned to him. The kingdoms of this world 
and the glory of them invited him to become one of 
them. Some yielded to the seduction. Many of the 
favoured race have been lost in the sands of the 
centuries, scattered amongst neighbouring nations. 
But the remnant still remains, waiting for the fulfil- 
ment of its hopes, a Messiah yet to be born. 

The process through which the Bible has come to 
us is a survival of the fittest. It is a rough method, 
Canonicity perhaps the only one, for winnow- 
a question of ing the chaff from the wheat. Pos- 

survivai. sibly the process is not perfect. 

There are passages in the apocryphal books instinct 
with the divine message, and there is a Book of 
Esther and a Song of Solomon which might have 
passed into the apocryphal writings without loss to 
the moral and spiritual forces of the Old Testa- 
ment. There are catalogues of custom and law, dry 
national records, once of value though of no par- 
ticular use to the world of to-day. But it would be 
difficult to interpret our 'New Testament 'without 
the earlier document, a work which exercised so 
great an influence upon the writers of the second 
collection. In the New Testament we are not 


INSPIRED SCRIPTURES 


m 


carried through periods of history, nor attracted 
by a literature of religion. Indeed, there is a fear 
that the second Testament breaks off too abruptly 
in being limited exclusively to the sayings and do- 
ings of J esus Christ and of His immediate disciples. 
For there is no sign in the teaching of Jesus Him- 
self of any such sudden conclusion to the Message. 
He taught that He was only sowing the seed, 
leavening the meal. It is evident that He never 
contemplated stereotyping His gospel into one rigid 
form of teaching, or of organising a Church within 
the lifetime of His own apostles. If He had in- 
tended such a result He could hardly have failed to 
direct His followers as to the intellectual and ec- 
clesiastical character of the society that they were 
to found. He would have given them rules, or at 
least discussed the value of rules. He would have 
instructed them as to mental and moral dispositions, 
and as to varying customs far beyond the limits of 
Judaism. He did nothing of the kind. He only 
promised them a return of Himself in the Spirit, a 
divine power which would guide them into all 
truth. They were not to receive the lesson from 
His human lips, dear as that speech would have 
been to them, reverently as they would have ac- 
cepted it. We are probably not in possession of 
too large a canon hut of too small. church 

The discrimination which the early and New Testament 
Church exercised towards its teach- Canon, 
ers was severe. It was apparently her intention to 
rule out any writings which could not be authenti- 
cated as a faithful report of the sayings and doings 
of her Master, or as the words of that small band 


128 ORIGINS AND FAITH 

which had known Christ in the flesh and had actu- 
ally spoken with Him. The only exception which 
she made was in the case of that privileged apostle 
whose conversion was so remarkable, and whose 
contribution to Christian teaching was of so much 
force and character. But S. Paul claimed to have 
come hterally into contact with Christ before the 
gate of Damascus, and to have subsequently real- 
ised an experience which left him no doubt as to his 
apostolic commission. To tliis the Church appar- 
ently agreed, though in other cases it was her prac- 
tice, if not her avowed intention, to accept nothing 
as inspired by the Spirit of God which was not re- 
ceived at first hand, or which had not come direct 
from an apostle or through an accredited agent at a 
later date. The critics of to-day suffer from the 
disability of distance, and move about like men in a 
mist. But those of the first and second centuries 
must have had means of judgment at their disposal 
not available to us. If this principle of first-hand 
evidence was adopted, they would not have spared 
themselves pains to secure confirmation of the au- 
thority of the writings they received. It would 
have been comparatively easy for the apostles to 
communicate with the Churches in which they were 
interested during their periods of absence. On the 
other hand, it is equally probable that the Gentile 
converts had the means at their disposal for test- 
ing the authenticity of the apostolic letters and for 
multiplying copies of these authentic documents. 
It is therefore something better than conjecture 
which persuades us that, subject to small emenda- 
tion, we possess to-day a hterature of dogma un- 


INSPIRED SCRIPTURES 


129 


equalled in the annals of religion. The delay in the 
publication of the Fourth Gospel presents no in- 
superable difficulty to our argument, as a disciple of 
John of Zebedee might have had charge of his mas- 
ter’s manuscript with instructions as to conditions 
of pubhcation. For it is easier to accept this gospel 
as a report of the sayings of Christ than to intro- 
duce another man of the altitude of Jesus who lent 
himself to the delinquency of invention. 

As a practical matter, in what form are we to 
use scriptures of unequal merit and of varying de- 
grees of historicity? If the days Discriminating 
of literal inspiration are numbered, use of 
and for instructed people are al- Scriptures, 
ready passed, in what sense are we to accept a book 
indissolubly bound to the creed we profess? Cer- 
tainly we must lay aside the critical spirit if we 
are to use the Bible to advantage. Criticism has 
its own part to perform, and that duty is not always 
an agreeable one. It is painful to be called upon 
to correct the errors of an elder. To lay hands 
upon the Bible is like rebuking one’s ancestors. 
When one approaches it for the purpose of piety 
this critical spirit may properly be set aside. That 
text, this quotation, has had its particular signifi- 
cance to the men to whom it first came; but to us 
who read in it the light of individual experience 
it will bring a new thought and message. Illumina- 
tion fiashes from the mirror but it is only a nurror 
after all, and we see in the mirror darkly. It re- 
flects our own wants, it sometimes answers our 
questions. It is a book which interprets the past, 
and looking into it we may mystically forecast the 


130 


ORIGINS AND FAITH 


future as in the crystal of an Eastern soothsayer. 
Construe its letter literally, treat it as merely 
grammar, and the enquirer will come back empty- 
handed. It is always the “ Spirit with the Word,’’ 
when the Bible passes beyond literature into reh- 
gion. For it really matters little to pious souls how 
much of it is fact and how much poetry. God’s 
httle ones are less offended by the critics than we 
might suppose. The truth which we assimilate into 
our being is different from that which we appreciate 
by the intellect. We know; therefore we believe. 
If a revelation be established, for what reason are 
we to treat the canon as closed? Are not the 
rivers of Damascus as healing and helpful as the 
waters of Israel? May we not wash in them and 
be cleansed? Are there not outstanding writings 
in every age not less inspired than those of the 
Need for a Hebrew and Christian Scriptures ? 

Revised Canon. For indeed thosc Scripturcs them- 
selves stand in need of revision. Not only the two 
books that we have already mentioned, but other 
historical writings might pass into the Apocrypha, 
a book of reference for the learned, to be treated 
with respect, and used occasionally in the service 
of the Church. The Old Testament would then 
only contain those portions which serve the purpose 
of piety, poetical and prophetic records showing 
the development of religion, and opening the road 
to Christianity. On the other hand, the New Testa- 
ment might very well be enriched with passages 
from the saints and confessors of the Universal 
Church whose writings have obtained general ac- 
ceptance. Such a selection must not be denomina- 


INSPIRED SCRIPTURES 


131 


tional, or divisive, but must rest upon the pious 
experience of the Christian ages. Such a growth 
of the canon is almost required to secure the posi- 
tion of the more ancient Scriptures. For a breach 
in the message of God ought not to be admitted. 
When the early Church limited the New Testament 
canon, it was probably owing to the anticipation 
of an immediate return of its Lord. And so further 
written testimony to the faith was regarded as 
supererogation. Indeed, the process of selection 
has proceeded without the canonical imprimatur, 
and there are passages which command the respect 
and affection of Catholic and Protestant writers 
whose names occur to all of us. A more striking 
example is furnished by the hymnology of the past 
two hundred years. During that time, a second 
Book of Psalms has come into being. Amongst 
the many hymns which have been written by every 
school of Christian thought there are certain which 
have obtained world-wide reputation, irrespective 
of the churchmanship of their authors. From 
Romanist to Unitarian there is that great succes- 
sion of Christian singers whose music rises in every 
church, and whose hymns are found in every 
compilation. Separate these particular hymns from 
others, and we have a collection which has received 
the endorsement of the Christian-speaking world. 
For even in some cases where denominational 
scruples are permitted to prejudice their public use 
they are still read in private with approval and 
profit. Such hymns have obtained the same rev- 
erence and affection that are given to favourite 
passages from the Psalms and quotations from the 


132 


ORIGINS AND FAITH 


Gospels. They are lisped by the tongue of child- 
hood, and they falter on the bps of the dying. 
Familiar examples of these will occur to everyone. 
Just as a Christian Council confirmed as canonical 
that which the popular opinion had already so 
treated and designated, in like manner a conference 
representative of Christian churches might with 
equal validity enrich the canon of the New Testa- 
ment by these latter-day inspirations. As the years 
increase the mystical reverence of age will crown 
the present-day judgment. We must also remem- 
ber that, on the lower levels of civihsation, the 
sacred mountains appeared more majestic. A 
broader area of education has lifted the basis of 
human thought. We are living on a tableland, and 
an eminence which would bulk as mountains to the 
dwellers in the lowlands are only kopjes rising from 
the veldt. The great men of our day are closer to 
us. We have no room for a Confucius, a Buddha 
or a Moses. Intelligent contemporaries so press 
upon a prophet that he is not able to command 
the same altitude as did these other men. When 
the output of thought is so great there is abundance 
of prophecy. The Lord gives the word; great is 
the company of them that publish it. But if History 
and Science must be challenged and revised under 
the critical eyes of the present generation, how can 
we save the authority of Scripture from a similar 
disintegrating process? We may hold that the 
writers of the Bible accepted Science and History 
on the traditional lines of their contemporary age. 
But how are we to distinguish between the historical 
and the moral, between the scientific and the theo- 


INSPIRED SCRIPTURES 


133 


logical teaching? If a writer, honest in intention, 
falls into inaccuracy on some im- Exaggerated 
portant matter, such as the origin difficulties of 
of the world, or the historical be- Scripture, 
ginnings of a nation, are we to part with our guide 
for that section of the road, giving him back our 
confidence when he proposes to accompany us 
through an unknown country of which he possesses 
the only wayleave? May we not also have left 
behind those intellectual and spiritual conditions 
which were peculiar to the period in which the work 
appeared, but are almost meaningless to-day? Our 
critics will not suffer us to take refuge in generali- 
ties, and it is a challenge which cannot be declined. 

We are entitled to say, in the first place, that 
historical accuracy and scientific definition were 
not the reasons which governed the acceptance or 
rejection of a book that claimed to be inspired. 
At that time, the means of determining historical 
accuracy or scientific value were absent. Probably 
little interest was taken by the educated classes in 
these technical references. They had nothing hke 
the confidence which we possess in the science of 
their day. The canon was not determined upon 
these issues. It was the searching appeal to the 
heart, the pathetic story of an individual, the 
episode in the national life, which affected them. 
They were not concerned in dates and time, but in 
the story of a nation carrying their national god 
into battle, in the exultation of the victor, in the 
cry of the vanquished. It was the groping of the 
individual soul after its God, the passionate cry of 
the exile, the grace and favour of forgiveness which 


134 


ORIGINS AND FAITH 


moved them to the acknowledgment of the truth, 
and to-day we are not really concerned in the 
mistaken date, the miscopied figure, or with armies 
multiplied by the luxuriance of Oriental imagery. 
The adjuration to the sun and to the moon put 
into the mouth of Joshua were natural enough to 
the wild fury of a battle. If the writer translates 
his subjective impression into an objective fact, we 
may re-translate it for him in the cool atmosphere 
of European thought without making him respon- 
sible for intentional misrepresentation. When, 
however, historical or scientific statements are sub- 
sequently made the base of theological argument, 
and the dogma deduced therefrom has to stand or 
fall with the basal fact, then a more serious situation 
is created. For example, we may take the earlier 
chapters of Genesis with their detailed account of 
the beginnings of life in the dawn of the world. 
We cannot treat them simply as a primitive effort 
Theological relation explaining existence if they 
of Old and are adopted in the New Testa- 
New Testaments. ment as. serious history and a 
doctrine of redemption founded upon the fall of 
man. But here we may point out that the apostolic 
argument does not depend upon the literal accuracy 
of the Mosaic cosmogony, and would neither be 
weakened nor impaired if the story resolved itself 
into the poetry of tradition. Nor is the argument 
affected by the similarity between the Hebraic 
and the Babylonian accounts. A people naturally 
adopt some theory as to the beginnings of things. 
They carry the story of their own nation back to 
the pit from which they were dug. If the Hebrews 


INSPIRED SCRIPTURES 


135 


had begun as an obscure tribe, an offshoot of Syria 
or Phoenicia, we should not have discovered the 
strong family likeness between Hebrew and Baby- 
lonian. There was no reason why the Hebrew 
should claim relationship with Chaldsea. Phoe- 
nicia and Syria possessed an advanced civilisation, 
and could have furnished him with quite as rep- 
utable an ancestry. In fact, the later writers of 
the Old Testament had every inducement to reject 
Babylonian associations as more humiliating than 
a purely Canaanite origin. The Babylonian Em- 
pire long threatened, and finally overthrew them. 
The captivity was a terrible breach in the life of 
the nation, a gulf of despair from which they were 
only rescued by the merciful providence of their 
own God. Why, then, should they have retained a 
Babylonian tradition derived from a people to 
whom they had grown naturally antipathetic? It 
must have emerged out of their own dark past, 
some fragment of history running on parallel hnes 
to that of Babylon. The difference in dignity, 
simplicity, and power between the two accounts does 
not forbid us tracing both stories to a common 
origin. The Hebrew writer has illuminated his 
record with inspired thought, whilst the Babylonian 
has fallen to the level of his grosser faith. It will 
be urged that this only proves a mythic origin for 
both accounts, but it is equally possible that the 
myth itself was founded upon some facts of im- 
mense antiquity. A myth is rarely The Value of 
a pure invention. The first person Myths, 
who launches a story has to run the gauntlet of his 
own contemporaries, even if their criticism be re- 


136 


ORIGINS AND FAITH 


stricted to a discussion round a watch-fire, or the 
Searching investigation of the wise men of the 
village. The story of the Flood may have had 
its origin in a physical catastrophe which befel 
Mesopotamia under a conjunction of circumstances 
easily imagined, twelve or fifteen thousand years 
ago, at the very dawn of civilisation. In addition 
to that, considerable changes have taken place in 
the distribution of land and water on the globe 
since the appearance of man. To dismiss the 
account of the Creation in the Book of Genesis 
as a study of the beginnings of things suited to 
the childhood of the world may not be doing it 
full justice. Something has quickened the process 
of evolution since man broke away from his fellow 
mammals, developing the brain and enlarging the 
intelligence. Whether mankind has been evolved 
from one parent stem or from three is still matter 
for consideration. The white, yellow, and black 
races are sufficiently distinctive to suggest inde- 
pendent origins after the animal progenitor had 
become highly developed. Within the range of 
monumental record there is no sign of modification 
of race type, or approximation of the three races 
to one another. But with all three, the gulf between 
them and the animal is too broad to be covered by 
the slow processes of Evolution. The cousinship 
Spiritual impulse of i^^n to his poor relations is pain- 
to Evolution. fully apparent save in the pre-em- 
inence of thought and in his spiritual conception. 
What has caused this immense difference, if there 
be no endowment from above at a stage in his 
development? We may have the awakening of 


INSPIRED SCRIPTURES 


137 


these new powers recorded in poetical form in the 
Garden story. It may be based upon facts faintly 
remembered from an almost immemorial past. 

But if you once disturb a simple confidence in 
the Book, have you thereby destroyed its value? 
Did not those who took it on trust, accepting it 
verse by verse as the Word of God, secure a quiet 
mind and a happy guidance through life, which 
justified this method? Why should there be an 
interruption to so successful a theory ? What is the 
practical value of the new interpretation which 
replaces the old certainties? Will it appear as 
unsound to a succeeding generation as the opinions 
which it proposed to supersede? If so, we have 
been only travelling in a circle, returning to the 
point from which we set out. To this we must 
reply that the earlier condition of simple trust can- 
not be restored. It was only our conviction of 
its truth that made the old literalism valuable. Our 
eyes are now opened. We have eaten of the tree 
of knowledge, and cannot restore our former inno- 
cence. The lowlands through which we have been 
passing were pleasant and comfortable, but they 
constitute only a part of the journey. The high- 
land pass is before us, rugged indeed; but courage 
persuades us to address ourselves to it. Our duty 
is to dare the future, trusting to God. We find the 
old guidebook of incalculable advantage, even 
though we have to correct some mistaken inferences 
of former travellers in the light of our current 
experience. We have boasted that with divine 
help we shall mount up with wings like eagles, and 
we must not surrender our attempts to navigate 


138 


ORIGINS AND FAITH 


the air because our first essays at the aeroplane 
provide us with an uneasy and doubtful seat. If 
our forbears attained to such a spiritual apprehen- 
sion of God as commands our admiration, though 
they were furnished with a limited intellectual ex- 
perience, we ought to attain to something higher 
with a stronger theology, and a broader outlook. 
Having justified the ways of God, we shall trust 
Him for more, not for less. But mistakes may 
easily be made. Progressives as well as conserva- 
tives in religion are liable to error. A fresh idea 
is sometimes hailed as true only because it is new. 
For the sake of liberal thought it is better that a 
question should remain undetermined for a time 
rather than it should be given too soon dogmatic 
form. We may look with well-found suspicion 
upon that teaching which derives satisfaction from 
the demolition of the old but has no care for recon- 
struction. It is of no use to pull down whole areas 
of the ancient Jerusalem, permitting the grass to 
grow upon the deserted site, with a general invita- 
tion to tender for fresh theological building plots. 
Especially should the critic tread lightly when he 
approaches those elements of religion common to 
every great faith — the consciousness of sin, the de- 
light in a personal God, the dream of a perfect 
holiness. We must remember that it is possible 
to exaggerate the practical value of Biblical criti- 
cism. If the whole Hebrew and Christian revela- 
tion were evaporated in the process of analysis, 
our relations to God and to the Unseen would 
probably remain substantially unaltered. Christi- 
anity has taken such hold upon mankind, because 


INSPIRED SCRIPTURES 


139 


it has responded to a universal need. Its traditions, 
its habits of thought, would persist even if its in- 
tellectual fabric were demolished. “ Destroy this 
temple and in three days I will raise it up.” There 
is a fountain of living water springing up into 
everlasting life, whether it be set in a marble shrine, 
or be leaping free under the naked skies. If there 
are no attendants present with their vessels to serve 
it, no cups of fine workmanship from which man 
may drink, he will form a goblet with his own 
quivering hands in order to slake the thirst of his 
soul. Man will re-establish his worship, break out 
into prophecies, justify his fresh creeds with a new 
philosophy. However thick may be the trees of the 
garden, the human, lost in the maze, will hear the 
Creator crying after His creature, and sooner or 
later they must meet. 


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IX 


JESUS TO HIS CONTEMPORARIES 

E very road that we traverse in the domain 
of religion brings us at last to the per- 
son and teaching of Jesus Christ. As the 
Founder of the greatest faith of humanity He is 
at once to friend and foe the object Christ 
of absorbing interest. Men seek to ^ dycussel^ 

put Him away, but cannot. He is still a man of 
mystery, and they are going about to-day asking 
“Whose Son is He?” Yet no dramatic result 
followed upon His short hfe and tragic death. 
The flood of history scarcely shows a ripple upon 
its surface when He disappears. For a while 
it seemed as if He had caught the enthusiastic 
attention of His countrymen, and that a national 
movement would gather in volume under His 
name. That hope was disappointed. But there 
was something more than His moral and spiritual 
teaching to account for the extraordinary attach- 
ment to His person, and the recognition of His 
presence by His followers when He had passed 
out of sight. High as that teaching placed Him 
amongst religious leaders, we are bound to dis- 
tinguish between His moral message and His 
personal power, between the mountain of the 
Beatitudes and the Calvary of His death. To-day 
His claims are discussed and His influence acknowl- 

143 


lU 


ORIGINS AND FAITH 


edged as if it were only the morrow of His cruci- 
fixion. 

The geographical position of Palestine placed it 
about the centre of the known world. The Eastern 
Palestine a Mediterranean had furnished the 

World Centre, stage for the varying fortunes of 
successive empires which had given in turn new 
masters to mankind. But Syria, so near the centre 
of the vortex, had taken a less active part in the 
drama. One would have expected that the Hebrew, 
possessed by the secular thought of the day, might 
have directed his energies into channels other than 
those of religion. There were the great seats of 
learning within easy reach of Palestine. Or the 
Jew might have attached himself to the fortunes of 
Phoenicia, and having explored the Mediterranean, 
have dared the Pillars of Hercules and penetrated 
to far-away Britain. As soldiers of fortune and 
organisers of empire, they might, on the other hand, 
have crossed the Euphrates and carried their in- 
fiuence to Cathay. For they were traders as well 
as visionaries, though they never found full vent for 
their commercial instincts. The brief streaks of 
enterprise which mark their history are found under 
Solomon and Uzziah, when the kingdom stretched 
to the Red Sea, and possibly despatched its fleets to 
Eastern Africa in search of gold and ivory. The 
Babylonian Captivity gave to the Jews their first 
substantial opportunity for commerce. The greater 
number of the exiles remained a permanent colony 
in that world centre. The difficulty was to revive 
the spiritual instinct and to persuade the Jew to 
come back to his ruined Jerusalem. It was only 


JESUS TO HIS CONTEMPORARIES 145 


the remnant which returned and became the ancestry 
of modern Judaism. The rest of the nation, sleek 
and satisfied, remained in Babylon until the Ma- 
hommedan invasion wiped out the last trace of their 
separate national existence. 

At the coming of Christ, the religious life of the 
nation was again running strongly in political 
channels. It was hardly possible for the Jew to 
realise his religion unless it was embodied in State 
independence. The long period of Persian, Syrian, 
and Macedonian rule, now followed by Roman 
administration, could not quench the ardour of the 
people. If their independence had really been 
obtained, their monotheistic faith would have been 
in greater danger; but it was the infliction of a 
foreign domination which kept the rehgious element 
at red heat. The Greek religion, hostile to mono- 
theism, philosophically inquisitive, keenly sensitive 
to the joy of life, might have broken through their 
isolation and modified their creed. But it was the 
consciousness of a world mission that beckoned them 
forward, isolating their faith, and encouraging their 
resistance. They were turbulent with the ferment 
of unused powers, restless with the consciousness 
of a genius whose wayward brilliancy would always 
make its mark amidst the colder constellations. 
This persistent idea of an election separated them 
from other people. For if their own little country 
resounded with the echoes of prosperous empires, 
the wilderness stealing up to their very doors 
whispered of the calm of eternal things. There 
was always a desert place at hand into which a 
teacher with his disciples could go apart and rest 


146 


ORIGINS AND FAITH 


a while. A new prophet might dwell in the deserts 
until the time of his showing unto Israel, and a 
political leader, depressed by opposition, refused a 
hearing, and pursued by the hatred of his opponents, 
had always a refuge into whose recesses he could 
flee from present distress. If he desired, he could 
prolong his journey to those haunted mountains 
which were still vocal with the message of God. 

Out of this extraordinary people arose One Who 
is the greatest gift of Judaism to the world. It is 
remarkable that at His coming His own nation was 
prepared to accept Him in one character, whilst 
the world has received Him in another. In the 
political anticipation of the Jew it was the fulness 
of time for their Messiah. He was the supernatural 
leader Who should rebuild the 

Messianic Ideal. David, break the yoke 

of the Roman, and Himself rule over the kings of 
the earth. The imperiousness of His claim was in 
no doubt. For He would break in pieces like a 
potter’s vessel those who disputed with Him. He 
was coming from Bozrah, with garments red from 
Edom, rolled in the blood of His enemies, purple 
with His victory. There was no shedding of His 
own blood for the salvation of others, no hint 
of personal sacrifice. There had been, indeed, a 
prophecy of the suffering servant of God who would 
bear the sin of many, be numbered with the trans- 
gressors, and pour out his soul unto death. Surely 
the nation had seen this type fulfilled again and 
again. Its cup of sorrow had been flushed to the 
brim as leader after leader had suffered in its cause. 
But the campaign of the coming Messiah would be 


JESUS TO HIS CONTEMPORARIES 147 


crowned with success. The people were on the 
tiptoe of expectation, listening for the chariot of 
their approaching leader. And this accounts for 
the immediate popularity of Jesus Christ, the 
intense curiosity shown about Him, the desire to 
take Him by force and make Him a king. It was 
to be otherwise. Yet the alternative manifestation 
was still more remarkable. We could not have 
anticipated that a crowning revelation from God 
should have come to a small Eastern people waiting 
for political deliverance. Surely the teacher of 
humanity should have appeared ki the “ glory that 
was Greece,” in the “ grandeur that was Rome.” 
Would there not have been greater dignity in a 
manifestation of Deity on the Acropolis, or on the 
Capitol? But there is one consideration which 
tells powerfully in favour of Palestine. Amongst 
the nations of the world the Jewish was probably 
the most moral, the cleanest living, with the 
highest conception of the dignity of the body, and 
of the purity of the soul. Perhaps a higher evolu- 
tion of moral idealism may rank of greater impor- 
tance in the eyes of Deity than the development of 
the intellectual faculties. 

We must remember the bitter disappointment 
felt by the people amongst whom His coming had 
raised so great a hope. The popular rejection of 
Him was probably due to His failure to serve their 
political ideals. For the voice of His forerunner, 
John the Baptist, had suggested revolutionary 
intention. The Jews had sufficient experience of 
militant Paganism to realise the power of their 
Roman government. They knew that a revolt 


148 


ORIGINS AND FAITH 


would never bring success under the ordinary 
chances of war. Independence based upon such 
a calculation was only a dream, and the more 
The Mistress of Sensible had never indulged in it. 
the World. Rome was closer at hand for all 
practical purposes than ancient Babylon. She was 
as much at home by sea as on land. No one had 
hitherto successfully defied her. The extent of her 
empire was only measured by her willingness to 
conduct fresh frontier wars, and by her discretion 
in assimilating foreign elements. She was as 
remorseless as fate. Her uniformity of govern- 
ment was at once a wonder and a terror to the 
nations. Her great causeways mocked at frontiers, 
disdaining geographical difficulties. She exalted 
the valleys, and the mountains and hills she brought 
low. Her communications linked Europe with 
Asia, and surpassed anything which has ever existed 
until modern times. Her knowledge was so minute, 
her reach so penetrating and resistless, that it was 
as hopeless for anyone to escape from her power 
as to hide from the oversight of God. Conform 
to her will, and life became easy. Oppose her, and 
the wretch who so defied fled across the wastes a 
vagabond and an outcast, to be overtaken at last by 
an inevitable fate. Her justice brightened life; 
her anger darkened the world into a desolation. 
Such a power could only be matched and overborne 
by the supernatural. Proud of the history of his 
own country, the Jew believed that this still could 
be done, for the Hebrews had marched out of 
Egypt led by the pillar of fire, and beleaguered 
Jerusalem had beheld in one night the hosts of 


JESUS TO HIS CONTEMPORARIES 149 


Assyria melt away. Nineveh had fallen, whilst 
J erusalem had again sprung from her ashes. What 
was Rome that it should not give way before the 
face of the Messiah? Might not even the very 
establishment of the Roman Empire be the means 
of establishing that world-wide dominion wliich seer 
and prophet had foretold? The Roman legions 
were themselves drawn from different races of the 
empire. It was not incredible that they might 
accept a Jewish prince of military achievement, 
upon whom, suddenly acclaimed, they would confer 
the purple. Then would begin that reign of peace 
and righteousness in wliich tributary kings should 
bow down before Him and all nations should call 
Him blessed. He would naturally assume divine 
honours. Prayer would be made for Him contin- 
ually, and daily would He be praised. The East 
and West would be united, politically and religiously, 
and the golden age would break through the mist 
of centuries. No wonder, therefore, that the people 
turned with breathless expectancy to that cry from 
the wilderness: “ Prepare ye the way of the Lord.” 
Certainly, if this supernatural demonstration was 
about to take place, those who were to share in it 
must be men of clean lives as well as of religious 
aspirations. If a great highway was about to be 
thrown open, it could only be a way of holiness, and 
the unclean could not walk in it. Repentance was 
therefore a preparation for the way of the Lord. 
For individual sinfulness would contribute to 
national disappointment. So they crowded down 
to the Jordan to be baptised of this wild zealot, 
submitting to his denunciation, and desiring to be 


150 


ORIGINS AND FAITH 


delivered from the stain of their past lives. They 
The Baptism of came singly, then in battalions, and 
John. at last Jerusalem and all Judaea, 
and all the region round about. There was no time 
to deal with individual transgressors. He con- 
fessed them in groups, as early Christian missioners 
baptised villages wholesale. “ And what shall we 
do?” cried successively tax-gatherers, soldiers, 
Pharisees, assembled in their classes. He warned 
them of One Who would descend into the mixed 
multitude, with His axe in His hand to lay to the 
root of the tree. He would winnow His threshing 
floor, separating the good from the bad, gathering 
the wheat into His garner, but burning the chaff 
with unquenchable fire. As before, it was the rem- 
nant which would be saved to accompany Him into 
the promised land. For the rest, their carcases 
would fall in the wilderness. No wonder that a 
national terror spread at the preaching of John. 
And at that very time there was amongst the crowd 
One, made like unto His brethren, lowly of spirit, 
waiting for baptism, willing to fulfil all righteous- 
ness as exemplar as well as leader. He certainly 
did not rise to the forecast of His great forerunner. 
He neither strove, nor cried, nor was His voice 
heard in the street. He disclaimed the office of 
Conflicting Ideal judge and divider which others 
of Jesus. sought to confer. He declined to 
separate the wheat from the tares. “ Let both grow 
together unto the harvest.” He was not sent to 
destroy men’s lives, but to save them. He did not 
judge them. There was another who judged them. 
It is a day of grace and not a day of wrath. His 


JESUS TO HIS CONTEMPORARIES 151 


kingdom was not of this world; and His servants 
were bidden to put up the sword. No wonder that 
later on John the Baptist sent to Him, saying “ Art 
Thou He that should come, or do we look for an- 
other? ” If the last days of the Baptist’s brief min- 
istry were darkened by the fear that he had made 
a disastrous mistake, much more must Jesus have 
become a harassing problem to those of His own 
naK.on who had no special insight into His mission. 
In whatsoever perplexity His disciples regarded 
Him, we are not justified in saying that Jesus em- 
phatically claimed to be the popular Messiah. Yet 
the pecuKar genius of their national character, the 
persistence of their political belief, the tenacity of 
their religious conviction, suggest that the consum- 
mation of this national desire must be still in the 
future. For we must take into account the extraor- 
dinary fact that this race scattered amongst the na- 
tions maintains its traditions unbroken, and regards 
its prophecies as undimmed. If it is not this year in 
Jerusalem, it will be the next. A Jewish husband 
to-day treats his wife, approaching maternity, with 
pecuhar care, because she may become the mother of 
the Messiah. But the political ambitions of the 
Jew can hardly be given world-wide effect. The 
Jew is benevolent to others so long as that benevo- 
lence is consistent with his own national position of 
primacy. If all the nations of the earth are to 
receive a blessing through a Messiah, it must also 
come through the pohtical ascendency of the Jew- 
ish nation. We can, therefore, understand how a 
patriotic Pharisee would have regarded the public 
entry of Jesus. He would have observed with satis- 


152 


ORIGINS AND FAITH 


faction the pious disposition of the young Preacher, 
Judgment of His attendances at the Temple, 
patriotic Pharisee. JJis recognition of the Feasts, 
His visits to the synagogue. He may have heard 
the story of the Child Who hngered in the precincts 
of the holy place, attracted by its glamour and de- 
lighting its learned men with His intelligent ques- 
tions. That Jesus should draw followers to Him- 
self and form a society of His own was no new 
thing. It was common to every teacher of the Law 
who had attained eminence to create a school for 
himself. So long as he respected the Law and the 
Prophets, a certain hberty within the lines of Jew- 
ish orthodoxy was not unhealthy, and might be con- 
ceded. A reformer was bound to offend some one, 
and every new leader must be allowed a measure 
of eccentricity. It was really better that He should 
remain free from the pedantry of Judaism in order 
to inspire the whole nation instead of favouring a 
class. A reasonable Pharisee would admit that a 
great national movement must inevitably submerge 
fine distinctions, and that ultimately the Law and 
ritual would be re-established upon a broader and 
firmer foundation. When it was seen that Christ’s 
teachings were supplemented by miracles popular 
satisfaction deepened. No mere reformer could be 
sufficient without a witness from heaven. To work 
miracles was to restore the age of Elias or of one of 
the Prophets. It would give the common people a 
confidence which His teaching, however excellent, 
could not secure by itself. Nor did they want a man 
weighed down with learning. The less a new 
prophet was encumbered with Rabbinical tradition 


JESUS TO HIS CONTEMPORARIES 153 

the better. He ought not to be distracted by small 
technical detail. His mind should be clear, not 
likely to hesitate or to be disobedient to the heavenly 
vision. The Pharisee was prepared to accept some- 
thing with which He could not agree, even to bear 
the lash of his criticism, consoled with the convic- 
tion that if He knew more He would be more in- 
dulgent. For after all it was really the Pharisee 
who would be His best friend. The Sadducee, 
sleek and self-indulgent, with the chief ecclesiastical 
positions in his hands, cared little for national ideals. 
“ Give peace in our time, O Lord,” he prayed, and 
accepted the Roman rule. It was not a bad world 
so long as he was permitted the exercise of his 
religion, the practice of national custom, and the 
upper classes were not unduly taxed. There was 
therefore no approach of the Sadducee to the new 
Teacher, but the Pharisee could share with the peo- 
ple in the anticipation of the coming kingdom. It 
was to the Pharisee that the new king would have 
to look for His organisation and officers. For the 
common people who received Him gladly would 
still require training and leadership. He was really 
closer to the Pharisee in sympathy than to the other 
schools of thought. Subsequently S. Paul openly 
boasted of his membership in that important sect. 
“ Those things which they teach you observe and 
do,” said the Master to the people. There is there- 
fore reason to believe that the Pharisees regarded 
the young Teacher at first with an indulgent favour. 
It was only when the teaching of this Enthusiast 
began to desert practical issues for a mystic inter- 
pretation of His kingdom that His Jewish admirers 


154 


ORIGINS AND FAITH 


felt misgivings. They believed that He really in- 
tended to ascend to the mihtary Messiahship, but 
when He came to face the crisis His heart appeared 
to fail Him. To lay down rules for the kingdom 
was all very well. To declare the coming triumph 
of the poor and the weak agreed with prophecy. 
Amongst the nations the Jews were poor, despised, 
overlooked; so that the triumph of the down- 
trodden was the very purpose for which the king- 
dom was intended. The course which he adopted 
was a perfectly clear one. It was first to preach 
the kingdom throughout Judsea and Galilee, then 
to enrol followers until the membership of the king- 
dom should almost coincide with the nation. It 
was better thus far not to arouse suspicion; to sug- 
gest a moral and spiritual association ; to decline to 
challenge the authority of the State. Presently 
the time would be ripe for a sudden outbreak at 
Jerusalem to overpower the garrison, and to seize 
the capital as the focus of insurrection. No long 
campaign on behalf of freedom need be anticipated. 
The Roman forces in Asia Minor would be hurried 
up to quell the revolt, but at the first contact with 
them the Messiah would exhibit His supernatural 
power, and sudden paralysis would overtake them. 
They would be struck by disease, or would be other- 
wise unable to use their weapons. The story of the 
Roman defeat would run like a forest fire through 
the empire. Rivalries chafing below the surface 
would break out in the home provinces, and cause 
divided counsels. Barbarian nations recently sub- 
dued would throw off their allegiance. Provincial 
independence would be claimed by those parts of the 


JESUS TO HIS CONTEMPORARIES 155 


empire Roman in name but not in race. The servile 
population of the cities would threaten a rising 
upon the relaxation of authority. Wealthy citizens, 
alarmed for their lives and property, would press 
the central government to maintain the home forces 
intact even at the cost of losing a disaffected prov- 
ince. Anything might happen in the general con- 
fusion. Why should not the Son of David become 
the ruler of the world? But in the midst of His 
career, Jesus had turned aside from this course, so 
popular and direct, with a profession of indifference 
to earthly glory. The miracles were repeated with- 
out purpose and led to nothing. He proclaimed a 
visionary idea of despatching an unarmed mob, scat- 
tered instead of concentrated, to go from city to 
city calhng upon men and women to sell all they 
had, to give to the poor, and to accumulate treasure 
in heaven. What meaning was there in this idea of 
kingship if the Monarch kept no royal state, had no 
means of enforcing His commands, and His serv- 
ants accepted contempt and outrage gladly, antici- 
pating rather than denying the spoihng of their 
goods? How could a kingdom be not of this world 
and yet continue to form a part of it? 

There were ominous signs that He proposed to 
break with the national creed as soon as He felt 
Himself strong enough to do so. He was fast losing 
respect for the Law. He summed up the ancient 
code into a couple of sentences.- Men were to love 
God with their whole heart and their neighbour as 
themselves. He claimed to repeal the Law where 
He pleased, and to give to His own commandments 
the force of those sacred precepts. As He drew 


156 


ORIGINS AND FAITH 


near to the end of His career His speech became 
wilder. He looked forward to a violent close of 
life, but in some mysterious way expected to tri- 
umph over His personal enemies and to evade them 
at the last. He was entirely wanting in tact. He 
made the mistake of quarrelling with His own peo- 
ple instead of arguing with the foreigner. He ac- 
knowledged the tyrant where He ought to have 
resisted him. It was not a popular cry to teach the 
people to “render unto Caesar the things which are 
Caesar’s.” Certainly it would not encourage revolt. 
He really did not appear to care whether His nation 
had rights or not. “ Render unto Caesar . . . 
and unto God ...” But where did the Jew come 
in? Where was the claim for political freedom and 
for popular liberty? Then he delighted in perplex- 
ing His hearers by impossible statements. When 
the world wished to enrol itself in His society, and 
gathered about Him in large numbers, He made 
access more difficult to them. At the outset He en- 
couraged discipleship and laid down no very hard 
rules, but as He became popular He appeared to 
repel rather than to invite. Strait was the gate 
and narrow the way, and few there were who found 
it. He warned them that He had not where to lay 
His head, and bade them sit down and consider 
whether it was really worth their while to endanger 
all that was valuable in life for so little in return. 
Later on He indulged in hard sayings. “ Except 
ye eat the flesh and drink the blood of the Son of 
Man ye have no life in you.” Could any statement 
be more cryptic or unreasonable? No wonder that 
some of the moderate men of His company were 


JESUS TO HIS CONTEMPORARIES 157 


offended at Him and followed Him no farther. He 
resented the hesitation with which the educated 
classes regarded these extraordinary claims. They 
were willing enough to discuss practical schemes 
with Him, but he denounced these common-sense 
friends, who might have grown into warm support- 
ers, in the most uncompromising terms, making 
enemies of them wholesale. They really dared not 
commit themselves to the maze of His thought and 
the contradiction of His later teaching. “We 
trusted that it had been He which should have re- 
deemed Israel.” But regretfully they had to admit 
that He had added one more to that long line of 
presumed reformers who had vainly raised the hopes 
of the nation. Lo, here was Christ, and lo, there ; 
but nothing ever came of it. On himself the effect 
was reported to be unfortunate. He had fits of 
depression, in which He seemed to think that He 
would be deserted by all His disciples; and when 
he sat looking at the Jerusalem which could not 
comprehend Him, He wept over a city, and pre- 
dicted its ruin. 

At last. He made an unwise attempt to regain 
His waning popularity. Having abandoned the 
claim to earthly sovereignty, and having transferred 
His kingdom to heaven, or at least to some later 
age. He suddenly reverted to a demonstration of 
earthly kingship. His disciples arranged a sort of 
pageant. They put Him upon the back of an ass 
adorned with the trappings of royalty. They led 
Him into Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives, 
gathering a crowd of sightseers as they went, ex- 
citing the children to shout along the streets “ hosan- 


158 


ORIGINS AND FAITH 


nah.” Clothes and palm branches were strewn in 
His path, as if He had been a veritable monarch 
returning to the palace of His capital. The whole 
scene was theatrical in conception and tawdry in 
execution. Some of the priests expostulated with 
Jesus on account of the noise, the annoyance caused 
to quiet people, and particularly to Temple wor- 
shippers. He resented their intervention and 
showed by His reply that He had indeed deliber- 
ately lent Himself to the demonstration. No won- 
der that such a disturbance brought matters to a 
climax. The authorities naturally supposed that 
this was a first step in a regular design to raise a 
clamour in the streets in favour of One Who had 
lost His opportunity, and was striving to recover 
His scattered followers. His arrest followed, and 
most unfortunately His examination and trial had 
to be taken under conditions of much excitement at 
the time of the Passover. The successful attempt 
of the more violent of His enemies to press their ad- 
vantage to its farthest limit must be greatly de- 
plored. He did not deserve death, and the events 
which followed created a martyrdom that revived 
His teaching. Imprisonment or exile would have 
put an end to the whole matter in a much safer man- 
ner. There were many who expected that He would 
save Himself even from the Cross. But when His 
death occurred without any divine mark of favour, 
any sign of help. His reputation for the super- 
natural greatly abated. His suffering and death, 
however, excited deserved compassion. It was to 
be hoped that the rumours of His resurrection 
would not crystalhse into a conviction sufficiently 


JESUS TO HIS CONTEMPORARIES 159 


strong to give faith in His teaching and a future 
for His memory. This we suggest would have been 
the view of a cultured Jew of that day, a Pharisee 
who had regarded Jesus with sympathy at the be- 
ginning of His mission, but who had rejected Him 
because He had not fulfilled, in the opinion of His 
critic, that which had been predicted of the Messiah, 
“ beginning at Moses and all the Prophets.” 


I 


JESUS AND THE MIRACULOUS 






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X 


JESUS AND THE MIRACULOUS 

I S it possible to disentangle the miracles from the 
gospel story? To some critics of to-day the 
signs and wonders which accompanied the pas- 
sage of Jesus through the world. Are Miracles 
the light which hovered over His possible? 
birth, the after-glow of His resurrection, are mere 
fables, such as may attach to the progress of many 
a great man of the past, but occurrences which 
modern knowledge has demonstrated to be impos- 
sible. No interruption to the natural course of 
events has ever happened in the history of the world 
or ever can happen. N aturalism refuses to sanction 
any breach in physical law, and dismisses a miracle 
as not worthy of a moment’s investigation. Of 
course, a miracle can never be more than an emer- 
gency exit, to be used under exceptional conditions. 
The ordinary doors of life are sufficient for common 
ingress and egress. The introduction of an excep- 
tional law into ordinary experience, if frequent, 
would cease to be miraculous. But the uncom- 
promising apostles of Naturalism would do well to 
hesitate before they refuse to consider any historical 
contribution to miracle. Let them at least wait 
until they have penetrated further into the mystery 
of personality and into the suggestive influence of 
mind upon matter. 


163 


164 


ORIGINS AND FAITH 


Whilst Protestantism has reasonably rejected 
many a story of mediaeval saints, there is really no 
strict dividing line which separates the miracles of 
the gospels from the wonders of the post-apostolic 
period. These critics, in a persuasive mood, suggest 
that after the miraculous in the gospels has been 
subjected to a healthy criticism the moral teaching 
will survive the test, and that in it we may find all 
that is essential to the Christian faith. But we 
must point out that in the gospel stories teaching 
and miracle are so interwoven that it is impossible 
to disentangle the one from the other. There is, 
of course, a Rationalist explanation going much 
farther. It would have us regard the evangelical 
record as a fiction from beginning to end, based 
upon a faint outline of fact. It gathers round a 
fanatic who lived in Judsea under the governorship 
of Pontius Pilate, and who was executed under Ro- 
man Law. But this explanation would involve the 
admission of a miracle as stupendous as any that 
we are asked to reject. How could a new religion. 

Can Morals and Unaided by wealth, learning or fa- 
Miracles be vouring circumstanccs, have been 
separated? extemporised out of nothing? If 
so, its earliest disciples persisted in attributing facts 
and statements to the Founder of their religion of 
which they were themselves the authors. A handful 
of timid and ignorant men, without resources or 
direction, had been changed into a band of heroes 
through a fabricated story with which they had 
deluded themselves and others. 

In the case of other world teachers, the wonders 
related of them, whether authentic or not, do not 


JESUS AND THE MIRACULOUS 


165 


directly affect the substance of their teaching. The 
philosophy of Buddhism would remain unimpaired 
if the miracles of the Buddha were erased. Per- 
sonal details of the hfe of Gautama do not form a 
veritable part of the Buddhist creed. Mahommed 
might be stripped of his miracles without losing the 
leadership of Western Asia. But the resurrection 
of Jesus Christ is an essential part of the doctrine 
of His followers through which they multiphed, 
suffered, and conquered. “ If Christ be not risen, 
then are we of all men the most miserable.” The 
Jew gave an intellectual assent to the belief in a 
future hfe, but that doctrine had not entered into 
the hving blood of his creed. In the case of Chris- 
tianity there is not the shghtest doubt that a num- 
ber of men and women believed that they had seen 
Christ alive after His death, and they succeeded in 
weaving their own belief into the mental texture of 
the new discipleship. They abandoned the Jewish 
Sabbath in favour of the first day of the week, a 
day of rest and rejoicing, a perpetual monument to 
the resurrection of their Lord. If the resurrection 
can be historically accepted, then in Christianity 
we have an argument for the miraculous. What- 
ever may have been the anticipation of some great 
event on the third day, the facts of Christ’s actual 
death would have done much to shatter that hope. 
His growing weakness. His unbroken suffering. 
His cry at His desertion, would check the anticipa- 
tion of a reappearance. He whom they had regarded 
as more than mortal had succumbed more quickly 
than the two malefactors crucified with Him. A 
stronger vitality had prolonged their suffering. He 


166 


ORIGINS AND FAITH 


soon gave up the unequal battle with death, and 
yielded His spirit into His Father’s hands. Was 
this a proof of eternal life manifested through Him? 
If their confidence survived this ordeal, surely it 
must have been founded upon the fact that those 
who credited His prophecy about Himself already 
knew Him to be supernaturally endowed, and that 
they had been the actual witnesses of His miracles. 
That and that alone would have enabled them to tri- 
umph over the disillusionment of the Cross. But 
how far did this expectation survive? It is one 
thing to behold the Master hand touch disease or re- 
awaken life, another for that Master Himself to 
fade a victim into the shadow of death. Though He 
might be the source of life for others, how could He 
restore life to Himself if it were once taken from 
Him? There was little hope of that. Were the 
testimony of His resurrection based upon an empty 
tomb, or a vision of angels, it would hardly have sur- 

Significance of vived. But those repeated appear- 
Resurrection. ances under widely differing cir- 
cumstances accumulate a weight of evidence which 
it is impossible to ignore. In addition to that we 
have the witness of S. Paul himself, perhaps the 
most valuable of all, though his testimony is chiefly 
second-hand. Historically, his position has re- 
mained unchallenged, and there is hardly any con- 
troversy as to the general facts of his life and 
teaching. 

A violent enemy of Christianity, he was arrested 
by a remarkable circumstance upon one of his puni- 
tive journeys, and convinced of his mistake. The 
fact of his conversion cannot be denied, even if 


JESUS AND THE MIRACULOUS 


167 


we put down his vision to a physical cause. Pos- 
sibly the process of conversion may have been more 
extended than the period of crisis represents. He 
may have realised the truth of the creed which he 
persecuted, but such a disturbing conviction would 
for the moment only increase his hostility to it. 
Then came something, call it what witness of 
we please, sunstroke or epileptic s. Paul, 
seizure. The subjective impression was so strong 
that we may subordinate the machinery and con- 
centrate upon the objective fact. He could not 
afford to make a mistake. Apart from the irony 
of the situation, if he had suffered himself to be 
deceived, there was a heavy personal loss in sacrific- 
ing his own position amongst his countrymen to 
become the advocate of an obscure sect whose future 
at that time was extremely doubtful. After the 
vision he showed much deliberation before ranging 
himself amongst the followers of the Jesus Whom 
he had persecuted. He put his impressions at 
Damascus to a severe test. He retired into Arabia 
for reflection. He conversed with Christian leaders 
who were naturally reserved with him. He had the 
fullest opportunity for investigating the evidence 
for the Resurrection by a close examination of living 
witnesses and by the most complete enquiry into the 
circumstances. He was no hysterical woman, but a 
thinker of the school of Gamaliel, a casuist and a 
cross-examiner. Any weakness in the case would 
not have escaped him. He obtained details which 
have not found a place in the Gospels. He gives 
a version of the Last Supper and of the Resurrec- 
tion not to be found elsewhere. When he wrote his 


168 


ORIGINS AND FAITH 


Epistle to the Corinthians it was only some twenty 
years after the event, and there were many then liv- 
ing who could have challenged or corrected his state- 
ments; but upon their truth he pledged his whole 
life. If therefore Jesus Christ did appear in forms 
one or more to His disciples after His death and 
conversed with them, the greatest of all miracles 
must have occurred, and-the rest of the miracles are 
brought within the area of credibility subject to 
such critical examination as the unusual character 
of a miracle always demands. That this belief was 
abroad was beyond doubt. The early Church ac- 
cepted the story with unwavering fidelity. The re- 
moval of His body by stealth, followed by the in- 
vention of Christ’s numerous appearances, would 
have been known to a considerable number of per- 
sons who had no possible object in perpetuating 
a fraudulent story. What advantage was there in 
founding a new sect with nothing to offer to its 
followers but unpopularity, weariness, suffering, 
and death? Yet they clung to Him as their present 
Lord even though they realised that flesh and blood 
could not inherit the kingdom, and that the awe of a 
separated existence had passed like a chill between 
them and Him. As the clouds of mystery gather 
about Him, and He finally passes out of their sight, 
they are still watching those clouded heavens for 
His return. 

Even if we establish the probability of the miracu- 
lous we have still to ask ourselves what was the 
testimony of the miracles to the teaching of Jesus. 
He certainly treated them as matters of exceptional 
occurrence. Perhaps He intended to reserve them 


JESUS AND THE MIRACULOUS 169 

for such a crisis of His own life, or in the lives of 
His disciples, as would admit of no jesus’ estimate 
other solution. If the miracles of Miracles, 
were mere wonder-working He would have relied 
constantly upon their evidence. But He only re- 
garded them as a supplementary attestation to His 
work. “ Believe Me that I am in the Father and 
the Father in Me.” And if this fails, and only 
then, “ Believe Me for the very works’ sake.” They 
were to arrest attention, to give secondary evidence. 
But He took every opportunity of discouraging 
their exhibition. He brusquely reproves the Jewish 
doctor, Nicodemus, for hailing Him as a God-sent 
Teacher on account of the miracles. He tells him 
that it is to those who have experienced a complete 
spiritual change, been twice born, that the message 
comes, and the kingdom grows visible. “ Even the 
devils are subject unto us,” exclaim the disciples 
returning from their missionary tour. ‘‘ Rejoice 
rather that your names are written in heaven,” re- 
plied their Master. The miracles were not intended 
to overcome scepticism. For “ He could do no 
mighty work there because of their unbelief.” They 
were to confirm the faith of those who had already 
accepted Him. Except ye see signs and wonders 
ye will not believe,” He exclaimed with a sigh of 
impatience. The miracle was an incident of power, 
an influence which naturally belonged to One who 
lived in two worlds. Yet it is evident that He did 
not set it high in the moral order, nor did He re- 
strict it to Himself; for He recognised the power of 
wonder-working in others who are not His disciples, 
and conferred the privilege upon certain of His 


170 


ORIGINS AND FAITH 


own followers. A miracle is like an earthquake. 
It disturbs human calculation, destroys the con- 
tinuity of daily life, and confuses our forecast of 
the future. We do not take as our celestial chart 
the occasional blaze of a meteor, but the soft radi- 
ance of the constant stars. 

There is also a distinct zone to which miracles are 
confined. He realised abetter than any onlooker 
The Zone of that He could Only give temporary 
Miracles. relief to physical and mental trou- 
ble. Within that zone the strength of His own per- 
sonality, and the exercise of a law lying outside of 
ordinary human knowledge, would in no sense con- 
flict with the general law of the universe. We 
cannot overlook that mental influence which has 
ranged itself among therapeutics, hypnotism, nor 
leave out of account telepathy, which is even now 
faintly knocking at the door of Science. These 
powers would be exercised by Jesus without that 
amount of conscious effort which is demanded from 
an ordinary individual who attempts to use them. 
These may well explain the healing of certain cases 
of nervous complaint and of some fevers. A rein- 
forcement of the vital forces of the human body, 
like the rallying of a scattered army, will drive 
back the assaults of disease, and recover the citadel 
to its rightful owner. The physiology of death it- 
self still remains obscure. Restoration to life has 
taken place after animation has been long sus- 
pended. It is extremely difficult in cases of death 
from drowning, and from particular nervous sei- 
zures, to determine the precise moment at which all 
hope of a return vanishes. The recall of the dead 


JESUS AND THE MIRACULOUS 


171 


by J esus Christ carries only these conditions a little 
farther, and does not necessarily imply a positive 
break across the law of human existence. When 
He went to the grave of Lazarus, confident of the 
immediate return of the dead man, anticipating the 
thankful joy of the sorrowing sisters. He did not 
stand before that grave as a conqueror Who had 
abolished death. There was no triumph in His 
voice. Upon his heart rolled the vision of innumer- 
able graves, the long farewells, the shudder of the 
living as the earth closes upon its dead, the loneli- 
ness of bereavement, the hopelessness of the silence. 
He had come that man might have life, and that he 
might have it more abundantly; but it would come 
by degrees, and not yet. There would be a second 
burial of Lazarus from which there could be no fur- 
ther awakening in this world. And so at the very 
moment of His success, as He drives back Death a 
little distance from its prey, standing in front of a 
grave from which the stone had been already rolled 
away — Jesus wept. 

In the case of two miracles — the turning of the 
water into wine, and the feeding of several thou- 
sands — ^we do not actually require a literal multipli- 
cation of loaves and fishes, or a positive change of 
the water into that vintage which delighted the gov- 
ernor of the feast. A powerful hypnotic sugges- 
tion, affecting the minds of all present, would give 
the result wanted. The people were faint with hun- 
ger through remaining so long under the spell of 
Christ’s teaching. He Who could attract and re- 
tain a mixed multitude so that they forgot their own 
physical wants could have produced the satisfying 


172 


ORIGINS AND FAITH 


effect of food for them: and the illusion was com- 
plete when it appeared as if the loaves and fishes 
had not only multiphed sufficiently to meet the 
wants of the entire people, but that the waste rem- 
nants of the feast had again filled the baskets. This 
illusion was only the outer form of the miracle; the 
accomplished fact was identical with the idea. A 
respite to hunger was^ given, and the multitude 
dispersed without any injury due to unsatisfied 
craving. So in the kindred case of the changing 
of water into wine, there was something lacking to 
the feast; but men had well drunk, and there might 
have been harm in an actual addition to the native 
wines of Galilee. If, however, the drinking of the 
water appeared to be as wine the necessary condi- 
tion was fulfilled without risk. There should not 
be any difficulty raised on the ground of illusion. 
Illusion and deception are separated by the chasm 
of moral condition. There are many sights and 
Illusion and sounds in N ature which are illusory. 
Deception. but which cannot on that account 
be called deceptive. An element of illusion must 
have entered into other parts of the gospel story. 
The Transfiguration was an apparition permitted 
to the three disciples who accompanied their Master 
into the mountain, but it was undoubtedly denied 
to others. There is no proof that Jesus and His 
disciples were out of sight of other people during 
those moments of revelation. It was in the day- 
time, at no inaccessible height, and possibly, as 
ancient paintings depict, within sight of the multi- 
tude gathered about the demoniac on the plain 
beneath. To the crowd it was only a patch of 


JESUS AND THE MIRACULOUS 


173 


bright sunlight on the hill, followed by a sudden 
echpse of cloud. To the three disciples it was a 
peep into the Unseen, a forecast of the exodus their 
Master was about to accomplish . at Jerusalem, a 
physical change in His appearance to be explained 
by post-resurrection events. There was an element 
of mystery, a cloud that overshadowed them, from 
which they deduced their own subjective impres- 
sion. It seemed fitting to them that a typical 
representative, both of the Law and of the 
Prophets, should converse with their Lord, but 
whether their identification of the two figures 
with Moses and Elias was correct may* be doubted. 
The illusion was a parabolic form in which a truth 
came to them, and they translated it into their own 
Jewish vernacular. It was of a nature not yet ripe 
for discussion, not to be treated hke an ordinary 
ghost story. “ Tell the vision to no man, until 
the Son of Man be risen from the dead.” The 
desert bush only burns with fire for a few privileged 
souls, “ the rest sit round and pull blackberries.” 
So to shepherds watching their flocks by night came 
the dream of glory whilst Jerusalem and Bethlehem 
slept unmoved. The great illusion of J oan of Arc 
saved France, and the little peasant girl of Lourdes, 
at the mouth of the Grotto, may surely have been 
touched by some divine thing reproducing itself 
through her human imagination in the star-crowned 
Virgin of the village chapel. Impressions from the 
Unseen are bound to be at second hand, flashed 
from a mirror. 

The miracles of Jesus Christ do not, therefore, 
require to be divided into classes, as credible or 


174 


ORIGINS AND FAITH 


incredible, or to be cast aside as corruptions of the 
gospel story. They were no peculiar emanations 
of a neurotic temperament, brilhant expressions of 
disease hke the pearl in the oyster. They were 
drawn out of Him by compassion, used for moral 
and spiritual purposes, subordinated to the will of 
His Father. He looked up to heaven. He blessed. 
He brake. If He be great Personality, clothed 
with a power all His own, we should expect that 
His passage through the world would be accom- 
panied by manifestations altogether beyond the 
common experience of mankind. 


JESUS TO HIMSELF 

\ 


'A 





XI 


JESUS TO HIMSELF 

T he day breaks slowly, so slowly that the first 
effort of sight may be misapprehension. 
We realise through a mist, but as the sunrise 
follows, and the shadows retreat, the vapours also 
lift, and we gain the true outhne and colour of the 
full day. Surely there was for Growth of the 

Him also, the Beloved Son, an Divine 
experience of doubt, perhaps tern- Consciousness, 
porary misapprehension, and finally the clear hori- 
zon. He increased in wisdom and stature, and 
therefore we may hold that the divine consciousness 
in Jesus Christ grew upon Him by degrees. He 
shared the ordinary conditions of human existence. 
That very nature implies limitation physically, in- 
tellectually. The name by which He called Him- 
self was Son of Man. That former life of divine 
Sonship of which He had intimations, and to which 
He would return, occurred like flashes of other 
consciousness, illuminating and reassuring later 
on. His capacities widened. His mental powers 
strengthened. His intuitions became deeper with 
enriched experience. “ Though He were a Son, 
yet learned He obedience by the things which He 
suffered.” He suffered by contact with tempta- 
tion and evil, but reacting from it entered still more 
completely into the mind and will of His Father. 
1T7 


178 


ORIGINS AND FAITH 


If His childhood, fresh with holy impressions, had 
blossomed into a manhood in all respects complete, 
what need was there of that long waiting at 
Nazareth in which no attempt was made to manifest 
Himself either as a light to lighten the Gentiles, 
or as the glory of His people Israel? The mystery 
of that silence must have some meaning, bear some 
reference to all that follows. Whether the story 
The Discipline of His birth was Currently known 
of Delay. or was hidden by Mary, and pon- 
dered in her heart, at least the beauty of His 
character. His grace and intelligence must have 
won recognition. Anticipations were formed about 
Him; for His childhood and youth suggested 
greater things. Joseph, His father, disappears. 
His brethren probably helped for a time to main- 
tain that carpenter’s shop which they had inherited, 
and from which their mother Mary drew her live- 
lihood. But the years slipped by without any 
marked change. The youth for Whom His friends 
had foretold the hfe of a scholar or the future of 
a public teacher only graduated in the university of 
silence, and spent His leisure on the lonely hills. 
His miracles. His ministry. His death, all were 
required to induce His brethren to believe in Him. 
So difficult is it for us to recognise the prophet in 
the man of our own street. One sentence in the 
canonical gospels breaks the thirty years of Naz- 
azeth, a period sufficiently long to determine the 
lives of most men. “ Wist ye not that I must he 
about My Father’s business?” reveals the young 
Jesus conscious of a duality of duty. We may, 
therefore, believe that when He was making yokes 


JESUS TO HIMSELF 


179 


for oxen, He was also dreaming of that day when 
He should appeal to His fellow countrymen to take 
His yoke upon them and to learn of Him. But 
there is as yet no sign that the Cross had entered 
into His thought. He felt Himself set apart for 
high duty, the nature of which had not yet been 
revealed. The anointing had long preceded the 
kingship. It is impossible to suppose that a mind 
so clear and penetrating had not debated within 
itself the needs of the nation, and weighed well the 
possibilities of success or failure in a bid for national 
independence. At first. He seems to have recog- 
nised a commission limited to the Jews. “ I am 
not sent but unto the lost sheep of the House of 
Israel.” It appears again in the conversation with 
the woman of Samaria. “We know what we wor- 
ship ; for salvation is of the Jews.” But the widen- 
ing area of His work was dawning upon Him. 
His intention was to proclaim His message to the 
Jew, first beginning at Jerusalem, not for the pur- 
poses of exclusion, but to confer upon the Jew the 
privilege of carrying the light to the heathen world. 
Those who accepted the gospel of the Son of Man 
would share in His glory when He returned in 
the clouds of heaven, recognised by all mankind. 
It mattered little, therefore, to One Who would 
be received with such acclamation how lowly might 
be the path of His present life. He was like a 
prince disguised, seeldng amongst country lanes 
and city alleys humble virtue, gathering about Him 
those few faithful hearts, who would be rewarded 
for their discerning fidelity by future distinction. 
In this way He could test a world which did not 


180 


ORIGINS AND FAITH 


yet know Him. He could discriminate between 
the good and the bad, the hypocrite and the truth- 
ful, gathering tender flowers growing in the cranny 
of the wall or at the edge of the miry path. When 
He returned in royal state the proud would be 
abased, the meek and lowly exalted ; the first would 
be last, and the last first. The method of His 
teaching, the pungent parable and homely picture, 
must have taken shape in His wanderings around 
Nazareth. He was a close observer of the bird 
of the air and the creatures of the wood. He 
marked the annual round of husbandry, and 
followed the shepherd on the hills in search of 
the truant sheep, after he had counted the ninety 
and nine in the fold. The primitive housekeeping 
of the village home, the making of the bread, the 
reckoning of the silver, had not escaped His eyes 
as He went up and down the familiar streets. He 
was not unacquainted with the trend of Jewish 
thought. The religious literature of the day had 
furnished Him with a vehicle of speech in some 
of His public teaching. The ancient prophecies 
ran hke fire in His blood as they strove to fulfil 
themselves in His own person. “This day is this 
scripture fulfilled in your ears.” “The Spirit of 
the Lord God is upon Me.” And so His secular 
life flowed like a river, carrying Him down to that 
epiphany for which He was destined. 

It is a remarkable fact that the crisis of His life 
should coincide with the baptism of John. There 

The Crisis of was little in the teaching of the 
Baptism. Baptist which was to realise itself 
in the Son of Man. The fact of the baptism also 


JESUS TO HIMSELF 


181 


claims comment. It is true that John had already 
formed a high opinion of Jesus, believing Him to 
be the Christ. But why was it that this greater 
than John came to him for the cleansing rite? 
That fulfilment of all righteousness is the only 
ansv er by Christ, and shows that He intended to 
conform in every particular to the law of the day. 
He observed the feasts, worshipped in the Temple, 
attended the synagogue. He acknowledged the 
necessity of religious observance, provided the latter 
was interfused by the Spirit. Even He maintains 
formalities for the sake of the general example. 
Go show yourselves to the priest and offer the gift 
that Moses commanded. He says to the lepers 
already cleansed. Speaking of the Pharisees and 
Scribes, He reminds the people that they are their 
accredited teachers. They sit in Moses’s seat. He 
distinguishes between the professor and the pro- 
fession, the worship and the worshipper. The veil 
of the Temple was not yet rent in twain, and right 
up to the close of His life He treated the Jewish 
ritual with the deepest respect — nay. He cleansed 
their Temple for them with His own hands. 

Something happened at His baptism. Some said 
it thundered, and others that an angel spoke. In 
these moments of exaltation an inspired compre- 
hension is required as well as an inspired message. 
The miracle is in the understanding of the heart 
as well as in the tongue of fire. To those who 
interpreted the sound it was a voice of attestation. 
“ This is My beloved Son.” To the eyes of the 
seer there were soft wings that descended upon 
Him and nestled in His heart. From that moment 


182 


ORIGINS AND FAITH 


a new Power transformed His life. But why this 
breach with a past/ already sinless? How came it 
that from the moment when He emerged from that 
turbid Jordan water His consciousness of God 
deepened, His ministry began, His voice rang with 
no doubtful message? 

If we collate the actual recorded sayings of 
Jesus Christ we shall be impressed with the char- 

Literary Style acter of His literary style. He 
of Jesus. speaks with restraint. His message 
is measured and tersely expressed. There is no 
redundancy of rhetoric; a stroke or two and the 
picture is drawn. One can hardly imagine Him 
raising His voice. The words suggest a quiet 
musical delivery. It is only occasionally that He 
takes His whip of small cords into His hands, that 
He flames into vehemence in the defence of in- 
nocence, or the denunciation of hypocrisy. The 
“ Woe, Woe,” must have seemed more terrible from 
One Whose habit of speech was mild to gentleness. 
It was the wrath of a lamb, the more alarming 
because of its incongruity. 

At the outset of His public career a remarkable 
circumstance intervened. We have it in His own 
words. For no one else could have given us an 
account of the Temptation. There is an air of 
literalness about it, and yet the form must certainly 
partake of the nature of parable. We would give 
much to know what were the actual facts behind 
the story. Why was he led up by the Spirit into 
the 'svilderness to be tempted? He was a man of 
sensitive temperament, happy in the company of 
others, who rarely absented Himself from the 


JESUS TO HIMSELF 


183 


society of His friends except He retired into a 
mountain apart to pray. Whether on the Mount 
of Transfiguration, or in the agony of the Garden, 
it was always Peter, and James, and John. The 
loneliness of His Cross was brought home to Him 
in the fact that all His disciples forsook Him and 
fled. He had used the last few hours at His free 
disposal in the company of His friends at a final 
supper. “ Could ye not watch with Me one hour? ” 
was His last pathetic appeal. Why should this 
trial have overtaken Him in loneliness, in the 
absence even of those visitors who were not suffered 
to minister until the Tempter had Theories of 
left Him. In this story we have Temptation. 
Jesus Christ face to face with the mystery of Evil. 
He was either mistaken in this account of His own 
Temptation, a description which bears the hall-mark 
of His style and thought, or there is something 
more behind. There is no doubt that Jesus believed 
that He had to deal with hostile powers, veritable 
persons whose influences were exercised in the 
material world. He recognised the presence of 
Evil, not only in the demoniac but in the disciple. 
“ Get thee beliind me, Satan, for thou savourest 
not the things which be of God hut the things 
which be of man.” ‘‘ And after the sop Satan 
entered into him . . . and it was night.” The 

better the man the more severe the trial. 

In every advance, in every attempt to do some 
great thing, we are challenged, controverted, se- 
duced. We start upon the new enterprise in the 
sunlight, but darkness soon falls upon our work. 
We reconsider its usefulness, entertain unworthy 


184 


ORIGINS AND FAITH 


suggestions as to our own part of it. Obscene 
doubts like bats flit about us in the dark. In every 
great act in the drama of life Evil seeks to play its 
part. It is this unholy mixture of motive which 
delays reform by damping noble purposes. In- 
firmity, mixed motive, unlawful means for lawful 
ends — every new scheme has to run the gauntlet of 
this deflecting criticism. “ The theory is a good 
one, but . . . ” “ The man means well, only 
. . . ” Ambition, selfishness, envy, hurry up 
and overtake the reformation which, if left alone, 
would have effected so much for humanity. The 
leading of the Spirit into the wilderness does not 
always take us there against our will. Many a 
leader desires to be alone, to recover equanimity of 
mind, sound judgment. He hopes to have com- 
munion with God and His stars. But where he 
looks for God, he may find a devil. 

The fasting forty days and forty nights was 
probably not complete abstinence, but the least 
amount of food with which life could be sustained. 
It is an old idea that the fast or spare diet thins the 
veil between the known and the unknown, and 
renders the soul more sensitive to spiritual impres- 
sion, whilst a generous fare tends to materialise and 
to darken. With regard to the form of the Tempta- 
tion we may dismiss from our minds the idea that 
Satan, a spirit of Evil, appeared to the Lord in any 
fashion by which he could be at once identified. To 
be forewarned is to be forearmed, and it is the sad 
experience of most of us that we never recognise 
our devil at the outset, or there would not be much 
temptation from his company. It is when trans- 


JESUS TO HIMSELF 


185 


formed into the angel of light that he threatens our 
soul’s health, when he has secured expression 
through the lips of those whom we love the best or 
who most graciously attract us. We may treat the 
Temptation as entirely subjective, as a struggle in 
the mind of the Master. If so, Jesus would take 
the earlier temptations as the promptings of His 
own mind. Later on He would discover that those 
promptings were not suggestions from within but 
thoughts projected into His consciousness from 
without. The objection to this theory is our diffi- 
culty in admitting such a vantage ground for evil 
in the personahty of Christ. A sinful man admits 
Satan too frequently not to distrust his own heart 
as a traitor and an ally with Evil. But Jesus was 
holy, humble, and undefiled, separate from sinners. 
He would not, therefore, have had that experience 
of sin which would have put Him on His guard 
against its intrusion. For He always speaks of 
Satan as external to Him, to be discovered abroad, 
but never in His own soul. He is a dramatic 
objective personality. ‘‘ I saw Satan as lightning 
fall from heaven.” In His human soul, that un- 
stained temple of the Holy Spirit, we may venture 
to assume that conscious sin could never intrude. 

Let us picture Jesus sitting on a rock in the 
Wilderness of the Quarantania, overlooking that 
road from Jerusalem to Jericho Suggested form 
so much frequented, sometimes of Temptation, 
dangerous. A passing traveller looks up, attracted 
by the solitary figure. He introduces himself as 
a Rabbi, Sadducean in his sympathies. He tells 
Jesus that he has seen Him at the ford of the 


186 


ORIGINS AND FAITH 


Jordan, where something marvellous occurred at 
His baptism, and that the Personality of J esus has 
strongly interested him. Though nurtured in the 
Hebrew faith, he has found something lacking 
which his own school of thought could not supply. 
He agrees with those few favoured ones who 
recognised the voice out of the cloud declaring 
“ This is My beloved Son.'’ For humanity is 
beyond the help of any Son of Man. A Son of 
God is the need of the hour. He further declares 
the necessity of the miraculous in the new teaching. 
It is of no use reshuffling old statements, rearrang- 
ing outworn ideas. Social and personal morality, 
goodness of heart, patience, long-suffering, all have 
been taught in the past and find their place in 
Pagan faiths. The test of the message was the 
power of the messenger. Can He offer credentials ? 
Is He able to protect those who come to Him; to 
provide new roads of service for them? If so. He 
will be sure of an eager response. The elder 
prophets abounded in signs and wonders in the 
heaven above and the earth beneath. Had He 
received this gift? Let Him put it at once to the 
proof. They were in a desert place, far from 
food, and they needed refreshment. Was He not 
hungry? He thought so. Let Him then change 
the stones into bread. Surely His own well-being 
and sustenance justified the miracle. “ If Thou 
be the Son of God ...” But all the time 
J esus had been hungering and thirsting after 
righteousness. Man does not live by bread alone. 
The kingdom of God is not meat and drink. For 
the moment His Father sustained Him, and 


JESUS TO HIMSELF 187 

made the little much. The Rabbi smiles his 
approval. 

“ I did but test your ardent soul,” he says. “ I 
know that you put the miracle too high for my hum- 
ble suggestion. Come home with me. There is 
bread enough and to spare in my house at Jerusa- 
lem. We will eat and drink and to-morrow visit the 
Temple in company to further discourse on your 
great resolve. This is not the place after all for 
a manifestation of power. You do well to rebuke 
me. Who would see the stones become bread? 
Only a wild bird overhead or some slinking beast 
of the field. The work of a new teacher must 
begin in the full light of publicity, at the centre 
of our faith, at the Temple itself.” 

On the following day they join the crowd, pacing 
round the parapet of the Temple, and look into the 
gorge of the Kedron hundreds of feet below. The 
Rabbi touches Christ lightly upon the shoulder. 

“ Here is an opportunity of declaring yourself 
once for all the beloved Son of God, the Prophet, the 
Messiah,” he whispers. “ Nothing can harm you. 
Leap into the gulf. He will give His angels charge 
concerning you that you dash not your foot against 
a stone. Around you the messengers will circle 
and bear you up in their hands. I will cry to 
those assembled, ‘ Behold the Son of God! Behold 
the Messiah!’ Everyone will crowd to see you. 
The priest will desert the altar, the merchant his 
merchandise. The day after, the whole city will be 
at your disposal. Leap ; in the name of God, I bid 
you.” 

“ I dare not use the supernatural except at the di- 


188 


ORIGINS AND FAITH 


rect command of My Father,” the Master replies. 
“ The Messiah can be no mountebank. Life is not 
an idle shuttlecock to be tossed lightly to and fro. 
‘ Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.’ ” 

Away, then, from the city and its excited crowd 
to the steeps of Olivet. Here, in the sinking light, 
behold the city flaming like a jewel in its rocky 
setting. Yonder lies the barbaric East, multitu- 
dinous and marvellous; southwards, Egypt and 
mysterious Ethiopia; westwards, sits Rome en- 
throned, stretching her sceptre to the islands of 
Atlantis. Here is an empire greater than any of 
which David dreamed. Can this empire be secured, 
this victory won? It will not be achieved by 
spreading ideas beautiful in themselves but power- 
less to outbid the sordid maxims of earth. 

“ If you will go to Rome you must do as Rome 
does. You must stoop to conquer. Concede a little 
evil in order that greater good may come of it. Sac- 
riflce a few that many may live, as they bury a 
maiden under the bridge in order to secure the safety 
of the wayfarers. Does not the vine draw its deli- 
cate leaf and fruit from roots which grovel in bones 
and blood and all uncleanness? ” 

“ And who are you who proffer such advice un- 
sought? ” the young Teacher asks. 

“ A representative man of the world, of much 
experience and far travel. I am deeply interested 
in you. For with good advice you are bound to 
succeed. Let me co-operate with you. Enquire 
not too narrowly into all that is done in your 
name. Turn your head away from detail. You 
are the Prophet, Teacher, Saint; I the organiser, 


JESUS TO HIMSELF 


189 


leader, swordbearer. Leave me to prepare the way, 
and you shall reap the harvest. Follow me.” 

“ Get thee behind me, Satan. Thou shalt worship 
the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou 
serve.” 

Perhaps at the most critical moment in the 
history of the world Evil thus renewed its attempt 
to form a partnership with Good. 

x j. L 1 1 • The Fateful Hour. 

Jesus must have keenly appreci- 
ated the course that He proposed to take in spite 
of temptation. Before Him there was temporary 
failure and death for Himself, long years of 
struggle for His discipleship, centuries consumed 
in the evolution of Christianity. And this intrusion 
would be attempted again and again. The Church, 
forgetful of the spirit, quarrels as to the form. 
Satan sits at the sacramental table and infuses 
bitterness into the cup of blessing. Even democ- 
racy falls into factions, and liberty is degraded. 
We are told that Satan departed from Him for a 
season, but it was possibly the same voice that He 
had heard in the wilderness, in the Temple, and on 
Olivet, which threw at His Cross the jeering 
summons, “ If Thou be the Son of God, save 
Thyself and come down.” 

No compounding with Evil will ever secure the 
greater good it promises. Fidelity to the highest 
proves to be the safest as well as the honest road. 

The first step taken by Jesus Christ was to form 
a discipleship. He made the selection for Himself. 
‘^Ye have not chosen Me; I have chosen you.” 

Apparently, He could turn the searchlight of 
His own consciousness upon other minds. “ He 


190 ORIGINS AND FAITH 

knew what was in man ” may be a general state- 
, t.. ment. “ But when thou wast under 
e iscip es ip. particular 

power of divining the thoughts of others. His 
disciples were not apparently selected on account of 
special moral excellence or natural ability. The 
power was hot theirs, but God’s. The service 
to which they were called, difficult and often 
dangerous, was yet easy to understand. “ It was 
to speak that they did know, and to testify to that 
they had seen.” They were only common people 
so long as He was with them. It was expedient 
for them, therefore, that He should go away. 
They were clumsy in the apprehension of His 
message. Declare unto us the parable of the tares. 
“ Know ye not this parable? And how then will 
ye know all parables? ” Their election to apostle- 
ship did not prevent them from temptation. 
“ Simon, Simon, Satan hath desired to have thee 
that he may sift thee as wheat.” A man might 
grow to be a devil in the society of Jesus Christ. 
“ Have not I chosen you twelve, and one of you is 
a devil? ” He was denied, betrayed, and forsaken. 
Many were called to the kingdom; few were 
chosen. They were to sit down and consider 
whether they were able to build the tower before 
they began. The election to service was restricted. 
The object of His teaching was to found a king- 
dom, but its essence is to be discovered in the union 
of the individual soul with Christ, and through 
Him with God. It was a Fatherhood in heaven, a 
brotherhood upon earth, which was the substance 
of the message. He Himself entered into this 


JESUS TO HIMSELF 


191 


deeper truth in the later days of His ministry. It 
was not so much the message, but Person greater 
the Master, Who, then, became all- than Message, 
important. The vivid colour of the apostles’ teach- 
ing is due to their definite and dogmatic realisation 
of this truth. It was the personal touch of Jesus 
that awoke souls to the new life. His words are 
seldom quoted in the Epistles, and there is prac- 
tically no attempt made to continue His method 
of parabolic teaching or to explain and amplify 
His discourses. But Christ was more alive in the 
early Church than He was on the shores of Galilee 
or on the slopes of Olivet. 


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XII 


JESUS TO THE WORLD 

W HAT is Jesus Christ to us to-day? Are 
the earlier creeds of Christendom, the 
Nicene and the so-called Apostles’ 
Creed, of apostolic or of later Christian thought? 
Is there no middle position between the acknowl- 
edgment of Jesus as the eternal Christ and the 
Son, “ very God of very God, Creeds, 
begotten not made, being of one substance with 
the E ather,” or the recognition of Him as a typical 
Son of Man, one of the brightest and purest spirits 
which have appeared in humanity, but differing 
from His brethren only in degree, and not in being 
and essence? It would not be difficult to show 
that Jesus made no such claim for Himself as 
that embodied in the creeds. If we are to accept 
the Apostolic period with its sacred literature as 
expressing more truly the spirit of Christianity than 
the Gospel records, we might hesitate to dispute 
these post-apostolic assumptions. It must be, 
however, carefully remembered that the relationship 
of earth to heaven has been entirely altered since 
those Christian centuries which formulated the 
Catholic creeds. We now know that God inhabits 
a universe, and that this world is only a small part 
of His sovereign domain. Early Christianity, in 
seeking to give significance to the presence and 
195 


196 


ORIGINS AND FAITH 


person of Jesus, truly held the behef that this world 
was the only arena in which the forces of heaven 
and hell contended, and that there were no other 
interests so urgent as those which concerned man- 
kind. In following the development of this doctrine 
we are bound at the outset to ask how Christ defined 
His own relation to His Father. In the first place, 
it is evident that He does not claim the power of 
God or equality with God. That which He declared 
to His disciples in no uncertain voice was His 
oneness with God. For if there are any statements 
made by Him which appear to support an identity 
of Being, they are invariably corrected by others in 
which His subordination to His Father is as 
definitely expressed. He says that He and His 
Father are one, but immediately adds that His 
disciples are to be one in Him in like manner. “ I 
in them and Thou in Me, that we all may be perfect 
in one.” “ He that hath seen Me hath seen the 
Father, but My Father is greater than I.” “ Before 
Abraham was I am.” “ But I ascend to My 
Father and to your Father, to My God and to your 
God.” He refers to the glory which He had with 
God before the world was, but He gives an instance 
of the limitation of His own knowledge by His 

Christ’s Doctrine declaration respecting His second 
of Sonship. coming, that of that day and of 
that hour knoweth no man — no, not the angels 
of God, neither the Son, but the Father. 

All this is consistent with a growing conscious- 
ness of union between Jesus Christ and the Father. 
There was that unity of purpose which gave 
reassurance to Jesus that He had not only been 


JESUS TO THE WORLD 


197 


sent into the world to do the will of God, but that 
His teaching and conduct were in harmony with 
that will. It was this conviction which enabled 
Him to speak with authority. His words came 
direct from the original source, and were not a 
rendering at second hand. The supernatural power 
which He exercised must have been a further 
reassurance to Him. And then He enjoyed a 
deeper insight into the thought of God than His 
contemporaries. He discerned the meaning of the 
divine affection for the world and its moral govern- 
ment. Like a son who lives in the sympathy and 
love of his father. He found himself reading His 
Father’s thoughts, yet more completely than any 
earthly son had ever done. There were moments 
when He shared the consciousness of God, lived in 
the past as well as in the present, and had an in- 
spired foresight as to the future. But there is a 
qualification in His testimony which showed that 
He did not read into His own personality that 
entirety which alone would have justified Him in 
claiming the power and knowledge of an Almighty 
Being. “ If He called them gods unto whom the 
Word of God came . . . say ye of Him 

Whom the Father hath sanctified and sent into the 
world. Thou blasphemeth; because I said, I am 
the Son of God? ” This claim of Jesus Christ is, 
therefore, to a oneness with God which no other 
man has enjoyed, a revelation of God through 
Himself which stands alone in history, a mediating 
position between God and man through which 
divine favour may reach mankind more directly 
than heretofore, a parabolic interpretation of God 


198 


ORIGINS AND FAITH 


in His own life and person. He is of God and 
yet apart from Him. He is of man and yet above 
him. This complex nature was apparently the 
view of the early Church. But two considerations 
disturbed the balance of the Church’s judgment, 
and apparently advanced Jesus to a position which 
He had neither claimed nor taught. 

The first was the doctrine of the sacrificial Atone- 
ment upon the Cross. As we have endeavoured 
The Apostles and to show in a former chapter, this 
Sacrifice. is largely due to the apostolic 
attempt to escape the Jewish ritual by interpreting 
it as fulfilled in the death of Christ. For this 
purpose the physical and local offering for sin was 
pressed upon the Church and finally systematised 
in later theology. This at once made Jesus not 
simply the author of salvation through the union 
between God and humanity in Him, but put Him 
in the position of One Who had deliberately given 
His life for the whole world, and Whose suffering 
in some mysterious manner had been commensurate 
with the greatness of the sacrifice. Jesus, there- 
fore, became in His person a refuge from the 
wrath of God, a place of escape from the divine 
judgment. It is true that the apostles had not 
intended to go so far, but the effect of the teaching 
of the Epistles attributed to S. Paul, together with 
the eloquent Epistle to the Hebrews, was to con- 
centrate a confidence and affection in Christ, whilst 
reverence and awe were the qualities of the 
worship of God. If this sacrifice for sin was the 
one and only act, not as symbol but as reality, 
sufficient in itself, then it follows as a corollarj^ 


JESUS TO THE WORLD 


199 


that the Actor in that stupendous drama must be 
Deity Himself, if His offering were to be as efficient 
as the circumstances demanded. The Alexandrian 
philosophy already known to the influence of 
Jews through Philo gave an inter- Alexandria, 
pretation of the Godhead executive, the Eternal 
Word, which met the situation. Jesus was there- 
upon identified with that Word, an eternally 
begotten Son, not only one with the Father, but of 
equal rank and authority, and through one Spirit 
they both dwelt in the universe. We have referred 
in earlier chapters to the suggestion of pluralism 
in the history of religion, and a doctrine of 
different persons with a unity of thought and 
purpose may be a rational as well as practical ex- 
planation of Deity. A popular school of philo- 
sophic thought has done much in modern times to 
give consistency and comprehensiveness to this doc- 
trine. The arguments for that or for a simple 
monotheism do not fall within the compass of this 
book. We may, however, refer back to the argu- 
ment used in the chapter on Atonement, in which 
we suggested that a doctrine of a second Person, a 
divine Son, the Word, could only be accepted 
with a cosmic interpretation. Surely it cannot be 
seriously maintained to-day that the Eternal Word, 
by Whom also God made the worlds, concerned 
in every part of the universe with an equal par- 
tiality, could have veiled His personality for the 
third of a century, and spent that time on earth 
as Jesus of Nazareth, having abdicated for the same 
period His far greater duties to the universe at 
large. But if we hold that He filled in a very 


200 


ORIGINS AND FAITH 


special sense the personality of Jesus, thus express- 
ing Himself through Him, making Him His rep- 
resentative, a partial manifestation of Godhead in 
bodily form, we are justified in treating Jesus as 
divine with a meaning and comprehension which 
could not apply to any other man. We receive 
the Spirit of the Eternal Son through Him. We 
approach the Father through Him. We can speak 
of Him as the Son because He is to us the embodi- 
ment of that greater Son, and of that Father to 
Whom our highest worship and deepest love are 
alone due. 

Christ is always leading men to the Father, 
showing them that whatever He Himself has, it is 
through the favour and love of the Father. He is 
ever a Son, though the best beloved one. We 
cannot suppose that He would have regarded with 
approval the development of worship of the Son 
Jesus to the overshadowing of the worship due to 
God Himself. And it is evident that the divine 
honours paid to the mother of Jesus followed the 
identification of her Son with an Eternal Sonship 
in the heavens. That worship of the Father in 
spirit and in truth which He taught does not 
preclude us from giving to Jesus our love and 
Varying testimony homage, our faith and confidence 
to Person of Jesus, as the One Who has first taught us 
truly to pray to “ Our Father.” There is a deep 
significance in the fact that in the writings of 
those apostles who knew Christ after the flesh 
there is not the same definite doctrinal teaching as 
to the Person and sacrifice as we find in the 
writings of S. Paul, and in the Epistle to the 


JESUS TO THE WORLD 


201 


Hebrews. The doctrine of the Eternal Word in 
S. J ohn’s Gospel is consistent with the theory of a 
separate existence of the Eternal Son, concurrent 
with a particular revelation of Him in Jesus our 
Lord. It is a question how far S. Paul and his 
contemporaries had actually advanced beyond this 
theory. There is no need to set Broader interpre- 
aside the creeds of Christendom, tation of the 
provided they be interpreted in Creeds, 
this broader sense, and the distinction be maintained 
between the divine Sonship as a whole and its 
limited manifestation in Jesus Christ. There is no 
reason for not recognising the fact that the apostolic 
teaching respecting Jesus was more splendid and 
triumphant than the conception which His own 
immediate disciples had formed of Him, or that 
He Himself had directly taught them. It was 
expedient for them that He should go away, and 
His return in the Spirit was more luminous than 
His appearance in the flesh. But whilst the 
Epistles of S. John are radiant with the love 
of God, and S. Paul has liis own teaching of the 
grace of Christ, there is a point at which the more 
vigorously-minded disciple and his great contem- 
porary come into agreement. After the triumph 
of His Lord here on earth, all things being sub- 
jected unto Him, S. Paul himself declares with 
true divination, “ then shall the Son also be subject 
unto the Father that God may be all in all.” For 
the teaching of Jesus is not so Miracle of Christ’s 
extraordinary as His person, and Personality, 
it is therefore upon the continued presence of that 
Person in the world that the apostles insist. Those 


ORIGINS AND FAITH 


who desire to classify Jesus with the great teachers 
of humanity point out with some degree of truth 
that there is much of His doctrine that was not new, 
and that, taken as a whole, it may be said hardly 
to justify the extraordinary position assigned to 
Him by Christian believers. But the teaching was 
summed up in salvation by union with God, and 
it was the part He Himself took in mediating that 
union that gives Him the outstanding position He 
has occupied through the roll of the Christian cen- 
turies. Hence the apostleship insisted upon His 
resurrection, upon His presence in the Spirit, and 
upon His future triumph and glory. It was a faith 
which had not the slightest connection with the 
religious behefs of Home and Greece. It came 
from a foreign and despised race to highly culti- 
vated and proud peoples. It conquered them com- 
pletely; it passed unimpaired through the recon- 
struction of Europe; it remains the last word of 
active religion to-day. This is the great miracle 
of the Personality of Christ. Nothing has super- 
seded Him. We have to accept the fact of Chris- 
tianity, and to explain it. If there is nothing 
inconsistent in it with the position of Natural re- 
ligion at which we have arrived in previous chapters, 
we are justified in adopting certain hypotheses for 
our working faith, as the practical man of science 
is bound to do as a foundation for his own deduc- 
tions. If anything should appear in the world to 
challenge or to supersede this conclusion, it is en- 
titled to the same candid enquiry. 

If we look further into the predictions of Jesus 
concerning Himself, we shall observe that the trend 


JESUS TO THE WORLD 


203 


of His thought restricted Him to His discipleship, 
that society of faithful souls which Christ limits 
He had formed, and which was to Himself to His 
remain in the world, but not to be Church, 
of the world. The world itself was to be reached 
through the Church — “ I pray not for the world, 
but for them which Thou hast given Me; for they 
are Mine.” And He promised to be with that Church 
always, even to the end of the ages. New qualities 
and powers were to be conferred upon His disciples, 
and the good news of the Kingdom of God through 
them was to be preached to every creature. But there 
was no definition of the visible Church. In fact, 
there are signs that it was presumptuous on the 
part of His disciples, and not required by Himself, 
to draw any definite line at all. There were to be 
children of the Kingdom, those who by association 
or heredity naturally belonged to it. Nevertheless 
there were many who should come from the East, 
and from the West, from the North, and from the 
South, to sit down in the Kingdom, whilst the 
children of the Kingdom would be cast out. There 
was an apostleship or regular ministry contem- 
plated, but those who cast out devils in Christ’s 
name were not to be rebuked, even though they 
followed not with them. There were other sheep — 
pious souls, who had not known the Christ in the 
far-away pastures of the grace of God — who would 
be drawn in due time into the one flock under one 
shepherd. The attitude of Jesus was the stand- 
point of His Church. But however great the re- 
sponsibility may be to those who have come within 
the call of a living Christ in remaining outside that 


204 


ORIGINS AND FAITH 


fold, we are not justified in denying salvation by 
union with God beyond the limits of ecclesiastical 
Christianity. At the most, we can only claim for 
it to be a fuller revelation of the divine love and 
purposes, a clearer speech than any which the world 
had previously heard. Just as before the time of 
Christ, so also concurrently with Christianity, the 
underlying world-wide faith remains. The Eternal 
Son is still in the world, though most perfectly in 
the Personality of Jesus. It is evident, however, 
that Jesus Christ anticipated the consummation of 
His work through His Church, which was His body, 
the fulness of Him that filleth all in all. If the 
testimony of that Church to His presence in it from 
age to age is to have any value, we shall be the 
more reconciled to the probability of certain super- 
natural conditions attending His physical life on 
earth. We have seen the importance, and discussed 
Miracle of the the Outline of evidence for the 
Nativity. Resurrection. Is there reason to 
reject as incredible the story of the Virgin Birth? 
Are we to accept the marvellous conditions of His 
dramatic exit from the world, and exclude the story 
of an equally marvellous entry? At the outset of 
this enquiry we are bound to observe that the two 
records do not stand upon the same plane of neces- 
sity to Christianity. The Resurrection has a sig- 
nificance and importance which does not attach to 
the entrance of Christ into the world. On the other 
hand, that so remarkable a character in history 
should have been distinguished in the circumstances 
of His arrival is within the range of the probable. 
The argument that similar stories have ^en told 


JESUS TO THE WORLD 


205 


about other remarkable personages in history may 
be used both to strengthen or to weaken the proba- 
bility of one such case occurring ; the necessity 
for such a miraculous birth is not so apparent. 
If a revelation in the flesh of Godhead were to be 
given, such a spiritual manifestation would not 
surely depend wholly on the fact of one or two 
human parents. Mary did not apparently differ 
from other women, was not even set apart as the 
mother of Christ for all time. She lived with her 
husband and had other children subsequent to the 
birth of Christ. There is no sign in the Gospels 
of any special sanctity attaching to her, and she is 
not marked out for distinction in the discipleship. 
She does not appear to have understood her Son 
better than His disciples, and in one emphatic 
speech Jesus disclaims any rights to her and His 
brethren over others who did the will of His Father. 
Two of the Evangelists omit any reference to the 
miraculous birth, and S. Paul is strangely silent 
on the subject. On the other hand, the story itself 
is an exquisite idyll of the birth and childhood. It 
is told so much in detail that it would be difficult 
to withdraw it from either of the two Gospels with- 
out mutilating the record, and the Church appears 
at an early stage in its life to have committed herself 
irrevocably to it. It is a question of evidence, and 
it is always possible that some further facts may 
come to light, such as an edition of one or both 
Gospels in an alternative form, omitting the story, 
or of some fragmentary gospel which may give a 
reconciling explanation. As a true and sufficient 
view of the person of Jesus can be held without 


we 


ORIGINS AND FAITH 


accepting the miraculous birth, it must rest upon 
evidence alone. As the case for its expurgation 
is not yet sufficiently strong, it is better that it 
should remain until further evidence can be pro- 
duced. In the event of doubt, the presumption 
ought to be given in favour of Christian tradition. 
We have, therefore, Jesus Christ as the representa- 
tive of God, at one with that Eternal Son through 
whom we obtain salvation, our Comforter, our 
Hope, through whom we realise the Fatherhood, 
and by whom we reach forward to eternal life. 


JESUS CHRIST IN HIS CHURCH 






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XIII 

JESUS CHRIST IN HIS CHURCH 


J ESUS CHRIST passed away all too soon 
for His work. Three short years had 
sufficed for His sayings and doings. How 
was the world to be regenerated from such material? 
If He had been spared to cross into Europe, or 
at least to visit the Jewish Colonies Brevity of 
in Asia Minor, how enlarged the Ministry, 
sphere of His influence! His miracles. His teach- 
ing, that gracious speech and tender touch, would 
have prepared the way for His apostles, and made 
future work comparatively easy. Every other 
world teacher has secured time and opportunity 
for his message, but just as Jesus began to interest 
He faded from sight, and the world knew Him no 
more. Some method was required to perpetuate 
His name, to spread abroad His influence, and to 
provide a medium by which He could reach the 
world. That was to be accomplished through a 
band of disciples chosen from amongst His fol- 
lowers. He was more concerned in their equipment 
than in the immediate popular success of His teach- 
ing. Through them the living force would be 
transmitted, the leaven would work until all was 
leavened. His discipleship would multiply like the 
loaves and fishes, a bread of life for the hungry 
world. The first apostolate would pass away, but 
m 


210 


ORIGINS AND FAITH 


the work would have been accomplished, or rather 
He would have the material to hand through which 
to manifest Himself. If He had indeed adopted 
the popular Messiahship, and established a political 
ascendency, a purified Judaism would then have 
taken the place of Christian teaching. In this it 
would have resembled Mahommedanism, a state 
faith superimposed upon mankind, but unable to 
grow with the growing centuries. Instead of that, 
it radiated upwards. It was the people who made 
the Church, and often modified her doctrine. Never 
has it lost its democratic character. Its membership 
has personal privileges and equality of responsi- 
bility, independent of the claims of the ofBcial 
hierarchy. Social position has never proved an 
exclusive passport to places of authority. The son 
of the peasant has become the Pope. 

The visible society of Jesus, the Church in 
evidence, was a necessity from the beginning, in 
addition to that large body of discipleship, known 
and unknown, secret friend or camp follower, who 
all contributed to that mystic reality, the body of 
Christ. He claimed the right to appoint His own 
disciples. It was a divine selection. He imposed 
upon them the conditions, warned them of the 
risks, counselled hesitation before they took His 
vows upon them, and promised great reward. A 
whole group of parables dealing with the responsi- 
bilities and stewardship of the Kingdom were 
directly addressed to them alone. They were 
promised immunity from many dangers, and were 
endowed with the ability to work miracles. Above 
all, they were entrusted with the key of the 


JESUS CHRIST IN HIS CHURCH 


211 


Kingdom, the power to remit sin, or to leave men 
bound. But this power was restricted in practice 
to admission to the Church, to disciphne within it, 
and to exclusion from it. Although it appears to 
be conferred upon that whole body of discipleship 
which Christ left behind, there is no proof of ability 
to transmit the same authorised powers to succeed- 
ing generations. For these supernatural gifts can- 
not be separated the one from the other. If there 
be an apostolic succession in spiritual authority, so 
also should the healing of the sick, the power to 
give sight to the blind, or to restore the dead, accom- 
pany the spiritual function. Even if the apostles 
in appointing the first bishops conferred a grace 
upon these new teachers in the lajdng on of hands, 
it is quite another thing to assume that a continuous 
endowment went with the blessing. For, indeed, 
the discriminating selection of Jesus Christ and His 
apostles must have been very different to the official 
consecration of men about whom the bishop can 
have but little personal knowledge. 

There is evidence from the Gospel narrative that 
Christ assigned to His apostle Peter a primacy in 
the early Church. N o subtlety can p^^^^ 

explain away the declaration of 
Jesus Christ that it was upon this rock, Peter, that 
He built His Church. The statement is both 
definite and extraordinary. It shows a very real 
intention to elevate one of His disciples to His own 
place as leader after He had left them. It demon- 
strates a recognition of Peter’s abilities, as well as 
strong personal affection and confidence in him. 
There must have been qualities unrecognised by the 


212 


ORIGINS AND FAITH 


world which marked out this man for generalship. 
He was to take command of that little handful of 
forces, representing the Kingdom of Heaven upon 
earth, against a grim array of fighting power ready 
to break out of the gates of hell to overwhelm 
them. It is one thing, however, to receive the 
divine selection, another to make that calling and 
election sure. Ko doubt there were qualities even 
in Judas Iscariot of considerable value to the early 
Church. If he had remained true to his apostle- 
ship the New Testament might have been enriched 
with another Epistle of S. Jude. Judas, as regu- 
larly called and appointed, lost his foothold and 
went under. Peter, snatched from final ruin, suf- 
fered degradation. No man could have denied His 
Master thrice at the most critical moment in His 
life, and retained personal respect for himself, much 
less the confidence of his fellows. A Christ may 
forgive, but His Church cannot forget. There are 
some failures in this life not to be redeemed, though 
God and man unite to help us. There is a note 
of warning in the words of Christ, a hesitation as 
to Peter’s constancy which must have pained and 
humiliated the disciple in the presence of others. 
It was necessary to publicly restore him to his over- 
seership, lest his apostasy should have invalidated 
his office. He was still to be the bishop of souls, 
a shepherd of the lambs and of the sheep, but 
nothing more. In the cold reserve of this recon- 
secration the idea of primacy is lost. Peter is no 
longer the rock upon which the Church is to be built. 
He is the indifferent shepherd who must be warned 
again and again in the very act of receiving his 


JESUS CHRIST IN HIS CHURCH 


213 


new charge. Even then his fickle disposition sends 
him wondering after another disciple’s future, until 
he receives the stern rebuke, “ What is that to thee? 
Follow thou Me.” The premier position in the 
Church fell into the hands of a man of more 
capable character and strength of purpose. S. 
Paul was the rock upon which the great lighthouse 
of faith was erected. It is to him that we turn, 
the living epistle of his Master’s thought, the maker 
of the Christian theology. From his writings we 
may gather the limits of episcopal authority, the 
privileges and duties of the rising s. Paul’s Theory of 
Churches. The tone of this apostle the Church, 
is that of a father in Christ, expounding, rebuking, 
encouraging. No one would accuse S. Paul of 
dogmatic weakness, or of failure to magnify his 
own position. No Christian teacher ever set his 
apostleship higher than he. Yet he recognised the 
Spirit of God in the Church as fully as, or more 
fully than, in his own teaching. As a father, he may 
exhort or censure, but he is addressing adult chil- 
dren, whose liberty must be respected. We do not 
hear much about the multiplication of presbyters or 
ruling elders, but of the gatherings of Christian 
brotherhood a great deal. Whilst the struggle was 
proceeding between the Pauline school and the 
Petrine and Jacobean, it was the Churches them- 
selves to which S. Paul appealed as unto an 
ultimate and only court. Then, when the inevitable 
sequel followed, and the young Church fell into 
groups, it was S. Paul again, by a master stroke, 
who subordinated the whole hierarchy to the di- 
vinely inspired Church, declaring that, whether 


214 


ORIGINS AND FAITH 


Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, all were theirs and 
they were Christ’s. Thus, he provides against the 
departure of apostles, and directs the Church to a 
source of energy in that body of believers, lay and 
clerical together, grouped into the one society of 
Jesus. Good had it been for the fortunes of Chris- 
tianity if this initial truth had been realised, and 
the company of the faithful, self -constituted, self- 
disciplined, had guided the destinies of the new re- 
ligion. Then, indeed, the Christian creeds and 
other matters vital to the faith would have fallen 
into the hands of a council truly representative of 
the whole Church, and commanding the respect of 
future ages, as expressive of an ever-present Spirit. 
That would have made it difficult for powers and 
potentates to have trafficked with the Church at the 
expense of its spiritual birthright. 

At the beginning there was no one visible corpo- 
ration. The Churches were grouped in provinces, 
districts, or cities. Although in correspondence 
with one another as a sympathetic brotherhood, they 
were subjected to a variety of influences, and repre- 
sented varying degrees of efficiency. In the apoca- 
lyptic charge to the Churches of Asia there is no 
responsibility implied, the one for the other. The 
message comes to each individual Church, accord- 
ing to its particular need. If the Church had 
remained in this form, it would have lacked that 
uniformity of teaching and practice which marked 
the two groups of Eastern and Western Christian- 
ity, but it would have gained more in the growth 
and expression of living truth. Heresies would 
have arisen, flourished, and withered, without af- 


JESUS CHRIST IN HIS CHURCH 215 

fecting that central deposit. They would even have 
contributed to the enrichment of the faith; for the 
half truth often expressed in heresy would have 
been absorbed into the body of a Christian doctrine, 
leaving the husk in which it had appeared to fade 
away. But when the Church grew into an organ- 
ised institution, cramped by State alliance, the 
heavenly vision grew fainter, and earthly considera- 
tions of expediency governed her conduct. But it 
was her high standard of morality which saved the 
civilisation of Europe from the Asiatic hordes. If 
Paganism had been merely an alternative form of 
the religious idea, the two systems would have com- 
peted upon an equal plane. But the grosser pas- 
sions had been deified, and sanction given to many 
forms of immorality. The natural faith in the 
Unseen, the fight that was in them, had become 
darkness. The descent from the North would have 
submerged the Greek civilisation as completely as 
the Aztec invasion destroyed the Toltec civilisation 
of Mexico and Central America, had not the ideals 
of Christianity first arrested and then conquered 
the invaders. It may be that the consolidation of 
the Roman Church was hastened by the pressing 
necessity of creating a common defence against the 
barbarian. One forgives the asceticism which dark- 
ened human fife in remembering the moral condi- 
tion of the great cities. Whatever vicissitudes at- 
tended the progress of the Catholic Church, there 
was always a living stream of water running 
through the most arid centuries, speaking of the 
peace and purity of the city of God. 

In what way was this living presence of Christ 


216 ORIGINS AND FAITH 

in the Church to be secured? There would be no 
The Living doubt as to His Conditions. The 
Presence. promise was sufficiently definite. 
Wherever two or three met together in His name, 
there was He in the midst of them, and that to bless 
them. There was no intermediary priesthood or 
sacrament. It was neither in this Temple, nor yet 
at Jerusalem. Wherever they met to perpetuate 
His memory, to recall His teaching and to 
strengthen their mutual faith, He would be found 
presiding over them. He claimed that prerogative 
of Deity — ubiquity. By the Spiri He was conscious 
of them; through the Spirit He would reach and 
influence them. But this was not all. His pres- 
ence in the world was to be signified by two sacra- 
ments — Baptism and the Communion of the Body 
and Blood. The one was borrowed from the cere- 
monial ablutions of the Jews, a symbol of repent- 
ance, a cleansing from defilement. It is by no 
means certain that this also signified admission into 
the Church. It rather assumed the beginning of 
discipleship, the position of a learner, not of a 
worker. Baptism was for the multitude, the many 
called to salvation. The Church was for the chosen 
few. To repent and be baptised was a general 
appeal. Many would be sent to tell those at home 
what great things the Lord had done for them, but 
some were bidden to the marriage supper. The 
communion service was an act of fealty to the 
Christ. There was the sacramentum, or oath of 
allegiance, to the Captain of Salvation. A com- 
memoration of His death, an appropriation of 
Himself by eating His flesh and drinking His 


JESUS CHRIST IN HIS CHURCH 


217 


blood. Was there in this greater sacrament only 
a symbolic value, without any other relationship 
between the objective fact and the rite that sym- 
bohsed it? The Church has generally attached a 
mystic importance to it, but even as a memorandum 
it is valuable. It was limited by Christ to the time 
which must elapse between His departure from the 
world and His second advent. Was that second 
coming fulfilled by His return in the Spirit, or was 
there a coming in the flesh yet to be accomplished? 
At any rate, there was no restriction of the ordi- 
nance to the first discipleship. In fact, the prim- 
itive Church appears to have treated it as a social 
function. There is no proof of any consecration 
of the bread or of the wine, not even of a prayer 
particularly delivered by the Presbyter. The Apos- 
tle himself was constrained to warn those who 
treated a solemn act of meditation so lightly that 
their own houses were the fitting places for food 
and drink. The discerning of the Lord’s Body was 
evidently an act of faith and piety; for there are no 
directions other than those which would apply to 
any meeting of the Church — reverence and order. 
Without that spiritual participation there could be 
no sacrament of the soul. But an ignorant or ir- 
reverent treatment of the service would bring con- 
demnation of the severest character, as indeed 
would any other levity incur when the soul was 
spiritually face to face with God. The claim of the 
Church to create a class professionally to administer 
the sacraments must be founded upon the right of 
the Christian community to order its own ritual, 
and to attach a meaning to it through the plenary 


218 


ORIGINS AND FAITH 


inspiration of the Spirit. It is part of that claim 
to independent action which has created ecclesias- 
tical order and disciphne, conferring powers upon 
one class in the Church which it has denied to others. 
But it is upon the most slender authority that these 
wide claims can be restricted to that membership 
which owns allegiance to Rome, or to any other 
spiritual centre of Christendom. Assuming that 
interpretation of the Spirit to be correct which can- 
not tell “ whence it cometh or whither it goeth,” 
we may argue that a practice which has served the 
Church in her infancy may be of no further use to 
her when she becomes adult and puts away childish 
things. A symbolic truth may be of the greatest 
value to one mind; a very hindrance to another. 
Danger to the Church has ever lurked in the as- 
sumption that its own provisional interpretation of 
heavenly mysteries can be expressed as a dogmatic 
certainty of world-wide continuous apphcation. 
No doubt much of the form of post-apostolic Chris- 
tianity was due to that Paganism which had existed 
in Europe for some twenty thousand years, or prob- 
ably as long as we have traces of organised human 
society. If the mechanism of Hebrew worship had 
a strong resemblance to Canaanite ritual, we cannot 
be surprised that the first gatherings of believers 
followed the lines of Pagan societies with which 
they were familiar, and the pontifical splendours of 
the Pagan ritual passed over to Christianity with 
those same temples which were purified from their 
ancient rites and reconsecrated to the new worship. 
But this comradeship of the Church, admirable and 
necessary as it was, involved the danger that loyalty 


JESUS CHRIST IN HIS CHURCH 219 


to the society would take the place of fidelity to 
the Christ and His truth. And, so, we find that 
even at the present day there are those who talk 
far more about their Church than its Master, con- 
tending for it as an institution hardly to be dis- 
tinguished from a political society, and regarding 
its successes as points made in a game. The war- 
fare of creeds has roused in the minds of the com- 
batants a temper, and has been accompanied by con- 
duct quite alien from the spirit which should have 
found expression in those declaratory statements. 
But the original idea of the Church was unique: a 
body of men and women, irrespective of class and 
distinction, whose function in the world was to 
establish the spiritual ideal as a working theory of 
life. They were to convince the world of sin, in 
order to save from degeneration, and to help for- 
ward the evolution of the race. For that purpose 
they were to preach Christ as the means of salva- 
tion. But the love of God involved a Christian 
brotherhood with human sympathies. They had to 
do more than to rebuke such customs and habits 
as confiicted with the ideals of Christianity. 
Amongst themselves they were called upon to prac- 
tise charity to the fullest extent, to deny themselves 
rather than see one of the brethren in want, and to 
show a neighbourliness to all men. But this neigh- 
bourliness or general benevolence was distinct from 
the Christian love which the apostles enjoined upon 
the brotherhood* itself. 

One of the most serious charges, which the Mas- 
ter gave to His servants, was to feed the lambs of 
the flock. It is evident that it is far easier to 


220 


ORIGINS AND FAITH 


secure the young to the Church than to recover the 
adult from the world. Hence the Duty of the 
constant conflict over the question Church to 
of rehgious education. Children Children, 
wake to emotion before the reason asserts itself. 
There is a quick response to an appeal to the 
imagination in every healthy child. Hence they 
people the voids of existence much more easily than 
their elders are able to do. The solitudes of the 
forest are alive with fairy lore. With them the 
unusual is always the possible. That which appeals 
to the best emotions, which warns as well as excites 
hope, find an easy entrance into the intelligence 
of the child. The Fatherhood of God, the gentle- 
ness of Jesus, appear to them instantly to be rea- 
sonable, because they are only a little better than that 
which their own parents are or might be. The ques- 
tioning of the child is not for disputation ; it is only 
an expression of open-eyed wonder. The reasoning 
faculty breaks upon consciousness a little later on, 
and then the earlier beliefs are re-examined, tested 
by those new powers of mind which inspire youth 
with such buoyant confidence in its own judgment. 
The ambitious boy or girl believes that he has 
entered into a new world more advanced than that 
of his forbears, and that his own first crude notions 
represent the wisdom of the ages. Consequently 
there are two kinds of teaching demanded — ^the 
one definite yet spiritual, dogmatic yet touched by 
imagination. There must be no doubt in the lesson 
imparted to a young child. The frost of a later 
criticism must not be suffered to chill the bloom of 
the fresh flower or fruit. But when adolescence of 


JESUS CHRIST IN HIS CHURCH 


221 


mind and body has set in, then as much homage 
should be paid to the new powers as to the innocence 
of childhood. Discussion will replace reticence, and 
whilst the youthful logician will not be thwarted 
in his efforts to prove all things, the discriminating 
teacher will help him in holding fast to that which 
is good. Yet that is what the Church has hitherto 
failed to do. There has been milk enough and to 
spare for the babes in Christ, but the stronger meat 
has not been forthcoming at the right time, and an 
unwise attempt has been frequently made to dis- 
courage that very enquiry and criticism which are 
the natural outcome of the age and psychologically 
proper to the young mind. So that out of every 
hundred who pass through the Sunday School 
barely twenty remain in the Church in after life. 
If some of the strength devoted to home mission 
work had been concentrated upon the young people 
of the Churches, the results might have been very 
different, and the returns of greater profit. 

There is a popular school of teaching which 
assures us that the early Church was designed to 
establish a universal brotherhood, a Socialism and the 
kingdom of heaven upon earth, by Church, 
economic means. It was to be here and now that 
the result was to be obtained. They further say, 
with much assurance, that the failure of the 
Church to realise the ideal of its Founder is due to 
its inability to grasp this obvious duty. They set 
down the increasing difficulty of reaching the mass 
of the population to the ever widening breach 
between class and class, to the severities of the 
sweater, and to the long pauses of unemployment. 


ORIGINS AND FAITH 


Let the Church show herself both willing and com- 
petent to put an end to this state of things, and she 
will regain her leadership and throb with her past 
enthusiasm. How far the economic system of any 
country concerns the religious organisations within 
its borders may be matter for discussion. That the 
early Church understood its message to be that of 
an immediate earthly betterment can be completely 
disproved. “ Silver and gold have I none, but that 
which I have I give thee,” is the tone of her reply 
to the insistent demand of Communism. The 
Kingdom was not of this world, and he that would 
claim the cloak should have the coat also. There 
was not to be resistance to unreasonable demands 
upon their property. It was to be surrendered, not 
for the good of the many, but for the use of the 
few. As a matter of fact, property, however 
produced, however held, was not a question for the 
Church, and was therefore to be ignored. This, 
however, applies particularly to the little group 
who set out on missionary journeys, assured of the 
presence and favour of their Master, entrusted with 
the powers of the supernatural. The ordinary 
Christian convert formed part of the society of 
the day, held property, paid taxes, and generally 
conformed to the law of the land which he 
inhabited. It was only when that law invaded the 
realm of religion, and sought to compel his con- 
science, that he openly defied it and called it 
martyrdom. 

The new faith was beset with difficulties, and 
embittered with sorrow the lives of its converts. A 
man’s foes were those of his own household. For 


JESUS CHRIST IN HIS CHURCH 


Christianity, though one of the poorest and 
shabbiest, was also the most audacious of religions. 
Although it could boast nothing of wealth or 
learning, it brooked no rival. Persecution only fed 
the flame, though martyrdoms grew into massacres. 
Life would have become terrible to millions if they 
had not reckoned the sufferings of this present time 
not to be compared with the glory to be revealed. 
They asked nothing for the moment. They ex- 
changed the old lamp for the new, the treasures of 
this hfe for the great reward of the life eternal; 
and it was emphatically true of them that where 
the treasure was, there was the heart also. For life 
must have had its attractions, though it fell short 
of modern conditions. The lot of the slave was 
hard enough. In many cases he or she was a white 
man or woman, sometimes educated, occasionally 
superior in sense and culture to his master, able to 
appreciate the refinement of life, yet practically at 
the caprice of brutality and indifference, to whom 
the hope of Christianity was an ideal and consola- 
tion. The happiest class probably was the working 
freeman, following his trade or profession. In 
higher ranks the worst examples were found. The 
upper classes lived for selfish indulgence, with its 
natural reaction of disgust and despair. The Em- 
perors themselves were rarely model masters, and 
sometimes monsters. The shadowy gods were beset 
with the frailties of ordinary humanity. Purity, 
self-denial, asceticism, invested the new religion 
with a mystic glory. Withdrawal from the world 
into religious abstraction became at the beginning a 
refined recreation which purified the emotions and 


224 ORIGINS AND FAITH 

exalted the intellect. For the old world was pass- 
ing away with the lusts thereof, and they were 
entering upon the new world of God abiding for 
ever. Christianity had nothing to offer except the 
crown of martyrdom and the light beyond the hori- 
zon. Yet it throve upon sacrifices and nourished 
itself upon visions and revelations of the Lord. 
There is no parallel to this under the old Hebrew 
faith. That suggested as yoke-fellows goodness 
of the heart and successful fortune. It had little 
certain teaching about the future, and promised an 
immediate reward for obedience. “ With long life 
I will satisfy him and show him My salvation.” But 
there were always hard problems to be solved, and 
these drove the faithful into the sanctuary of the 
Lord so that they might understand. Even with 
them, a faith, occasionally confounded by despair, 
is lighted with a sudden blaze of immortahty, an 
aurora which breaks the darkness of the Arctic 
night. Yet we are now told that the religion of 
Jesus is a gospel of social regeneration. Riches 
and poverty were intended to be abohshed. The 
wealth of the world, the products of labour, were 
to be controlled in the interests of the whole, instead 
of finding unequal distribution amongst individuals. 
If this were indeed the message it is strange that so 
great a revelation should have been missed by the 
followers of Christ, more particularly as the earlier 
disciples were drawn from the poor and enslaved. 
The number of wealthy proselytes was so small that 
there was no need to have omitted so striking an 
appeal to the lower-class population of the Roman 
Empire. Distinction of race, of colour, and of coun- 


JESUS CHRIST IN HIS CHURCH 


225 


try was no impediment to the spread of the brother- 
hood. Why, then, did not this doctrine of a com- 
munity of goods take first rank in their teaching? 
It would have increased the number of the adherents 
by offering an immediate reward instead of an 
ideahsed glory in the future. It was not the prac- 
tical difficulty of the teaching which impeded them; 
for they overcame more serious obstacles. Nor 
would it have forbidden the recruiting of the 
wealthy, for many wealthy went to prison and to 
death, suffering the loss of all things for Christ’s 
sake. There is no trace of this communistic doc- 
trine in the Epistles. Even if the first disciples, 
small in number, shared in common this condition, 
it did not remain long. Within a quarter of a 
century following the death of Jesus Christ, the 
poor and the rich were found together in the same 
Church, and were admonished respectively. The 
wealthier Greek Churches were ministering by 
special grants to the poor saints of Jerusalem. 
Besides, the possession of all things in common did 
not bear the slightest trace of an economic system 
for production and distribution. The first disciples 
sold all that they had and brought their land and 
possessions into the common fund, but there is no 
suggestion that they continued to work on behalf of 
the community. They left their former occupa- 
tions to join in missionary service. One missionary 
was not to be better off than another. They were 
to share and share alike. The same thing happens 
to-day, when a novice enters a religious house and 
transfers his fortune to the principal of his order 
for the use of that particular Christian community. 


226 


ORIGINS AND FAITH 


It is clear that Jesus Christ Himself regarded the 
discipleship as a brotherhood invested with the 
supernatural. They were to find friends in every 
city, speech and resource when they were brought 
before magistrates. Ordinary wealth would be of 
no use to them, and might become a temptation. 
Like Jesus Christ Himself they were to owe their 
lodging to the kindness of friends. The contribu- 
tions of the faithful not directly employed in the 
teaching of the gospel were no doubt the real source 
of income. Where they did not suffice, they sup- 
plemented the fund by a return to their old trades. 
Simon Peter exclaims, “ I go a-fishing,” and S. 
Paul takes to tent-making in order that he might 
not be chargeable to others. The solvent in society 
was to be found in the religion that they taught. 
Do unto others as you would have them do unto 
you, refraining from revenge, cultivating simplicity, 
hungering and thirsting after righteousness, turn- 
ing a pure countenance to the vision of God. Their 
Master was not concerned in organisations, and 
treated them with hardly veiled contempt when they 
intruded upon rehgion. The outside of the cup and 
platter did not interest Him. Its purification only 
distracted attention from the deeper cleansing of the 
heart. Yet organised society is taken as implied, 
and the propriety of government assumed. The 
powers that be are ordained of God. Magistrates 
are a terror to evil-doers and a praise to those that 
do well. The Apostolic intention was evidently to 
declare for order against disorder, for government 
of some kind as against anarchy. Yet the Church 
and civil government are on differing lines. For 


JESUS CHRIST IN HIS CHURCH m 

the members of a Christian Church were forbidden 
to carry their disputes with one another into the 
public Law Courts. The benevolence of the Church 
to the world was not to be of right but of grace. 
Though some of her benefactions may have been 
economically unsound, the monastic charities inter- 
preted the spirit of her Master’s teaching. To-day 
we are told that the Church is recreant to the earlier 
form of its faith, and that modern Socialism is the 
true interpreter of her teaching. Such a statement 
with regard to historical Christianity may be left to 
those who desire to establish it from the records of 
the New Testament, which are the only authentic 
reference. But if it were true that state ownership 
and equality of distribution constitute the truest 
form of Christianity, then it is a system which must 
be applied throughout the wide world; for in the 
new kingdom there is neither Jew nor Greek, bond 
nor free. 

If the gospel be an economic one it must of 
necessity be worldwide. That intelligence which 
has enabled the white race during the last four 
hundred years to forge ahead of its Asiatic compeers 
is only a trusteeship for the rest of the world. A 
man is born under European conditions, either by 
the election of God or by the selection of natural 
law. He comes into existence equipped by heredity 
and opportunity, and may not make a greater con- 
tribution to civilisation than an industrious bar- 
barian bent upon improvement. Most of the col- 
oured races are competent to become metal-workers 
and mill-hands. In finding a common denominator 
for labour there would be a levelling down as well 


ORIGINS AND FAITH 


as a levelling up. Their climate has relieved most of 
the coloured races from the European demand for 
food and clothing. Centuries of experiment have 
evolved a race able to produce brain and brawn upon 
food in quality and quantity much below the Euro- 
pean standard. No prescriptive right can be discov- 
ered in the New Testament on behalf of the English 
race concentrating in these islands a much larger 
population than nature had provided for in the soil. 
A Christian Socialism of universal application 
would therefore be of little or no advantage to the 
industrial communities of Western Europe. 

Whilst denying any definite teaching as to the 
political or social frame-work of the community, 
there are, of course, larger considerations to be 
taken into account. The Spirit of Christ working 
through His Church cannot be indifferent to the 
problems of poverty, misery, and vice, which come 
within the range of human betterment. 


THE MISSIONARY WORK OF THE 
CHURCH 




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THE MISSIONARY WORK OF THE 
CHURCH 

T here is no accurate comparison to be 
drawn between the Missionary efforts of 
early Christianity and modern missions. 
The first was an appeal to a body of thought in 
the Roman Empire, which had grown dissatisfied 
with its object of worship and had The first 
no satisfactory theories of the un- Missionary ideal, 
seen powers. The Faith as it spread, disembar- 
rassed itself largely of its Jewish form, and adapted 
itself to the philosophy of its new world. The 
missioners were men of its own type, inspired cer- 
tainly with a fresh enthusiasm, but expressing them- 
selves in terms easily to be understood. If the 
Orient is to reahse Christianity for itself, it will 
probably only do it under similar conditions, self- 
taught by God-inspired men of its own races. The 
barriers were ready to fall before the preaching of 
Christ on the European Continent, but when the 
messengers turned East they encountered religions 
of greater antiquity, more firmly interwoven into 
the common life, and yet endowed with a virility 
which European Paganism had lost. There are 
traditional suggestions of missionary journeys in 
the East. There yet remained a large J ewish colony 
in Babylon which must have become acquainted with 
231 


232 


ORIGINS AND FAITH 


the new religion, and from that commercial centre 
the message might have spread still further afield. 

With rare exceptions, there was no attempt to 
evangelise the rest of the world during the struggles 
of the Middle Ages. Even as late as the eighteenth 
century, the nations were too busy in preserving 
their own existence, and individuals in saving their 
own souls. The older Calvinism was not a theo- 
logical system which encouraged missionary enter- 
prise, although it did not necessarily deny it. At 
the beginning of the nineteenth century England 
was deeply engaged in preserving her national 
position, and the European conflict left her little 
time or money for remote forms of altruism; but 
when her safety had been secured, with so large a 
proportion of the earth’s surface left under her 
dominion, the nation, religious at heart, recognised 
that she had duties to perform, as well as advantages 
to be derived from this great inheritance. In 
the previous century the Moravians, the first of 
Protestant churches to enter the mission field, 
communicated the impulse of their interest to other 
churches. Salvation by the grace of God, a gospel 
without price, preached to all, quickened the pulse 
of the Church, and founded missions. The oppor- 
tunities under the British flag were multiplied. 
Communications between the different parts of the 
Empire were improved. The nation was not un- 
willing to see its religious representatives follow 
the trader, and give a better impression of the 
motherland than the brutalised embodiment of it 
sometimes presented. The personal charm of the 
religion of Jesus easily triumphed over the fetishism 


MISSIONARY WORK OF THE CHURCH 


of lower faiths. The white man, with his won- 
der-working appliances and irresistible strength, 
tempted the barbarian to adopt the creed of the 
higher race. To the African it was an honour to 
become a Christian. In Polynesia there were no 
large States, or organised governments, to raise ob- 
jection. Missionaries obtained considerable political 
powers, as well as social influence, 
amongst the natives of these islands. Missions. 

Life was purifled, peace and comfort followed in 
the wake of the teaching. Nothing gave a better 
return for the expenditure of money and energy 
than this wholesale ingathering to Christ. 

With the civilised Asiatic, however, it was alto- 
gether different. It was no honour, but a terrible 
sacrifice, for a high-caste Brahmin to become a Chris- 
tian. Philosophically regarded, his own creed was 
as defensible as Christianity, and superior to it in 
point of antiquity. He had seen too many con- 
querors cross India to associate mere brute force 
with intellectual primacy. To him Christ was at 
best one amongst many by Whom revelations of 
the Unseen reach mankind. From the lower castes 
more recruits were to be expected, especially as 
Christianity is always sympathetic with the humble 
and degraded. China less well equipped in positive 
religion had also her traditional faiths, and a high 
moral code. As the Asiatic levels up to the 
European, entering like the Japanese into the 
comity of nations, the superiority of Europe will 
cease to tell, and Christianity be left to its own 
merits. Perhaps this will prove to he an advantage. 
For to adopt the faith of an intrusive power is to 


234 . 


ORIGINS AND FAITH 


be regarded as unpatriotic. The teaching of Christ 
has certainly suffered through the arrival of the 
ironclad and the machine gun. When Christianity 
became practically the religion of the Roman 
Empire, the decadence of Rome had begun. Those 
Eastern nations which had felt the shock of her 
legions would have little sympathy with a religion 
which commended itself to their former conquerors, 
now growing effete ; and in like manner the intrusion 
of European States into Asia has not made the 
work of the missionary more easy. 

It is now fairly certain that we shall not effect 
the conversion of the East at first hand through 
our European and American missions. That inde- 
pendence which is begotten of a confidence in its 
future will lead a regenerating East to some marked 
modifications of Christianity wherever it adopts that 
faith as national. Probably the sacraments, which 
have a symbolism and peculiar value to the West, 
may be entirely discarded. We are already famil- 
iar with this position in the practice of the Society 
of Friends. A subordinated worship of ancestors 
will not unlikely be continued under the overlord- 
ship of a Christ; and a reverence for the Buddha 
and his ethical teaching, together with a scripture 
of his own sayings and that of other sages, will 
supplement a selection from the Christian writings. 
When it is remembered that there are few evangel- 
ical teachers sent abroad to-day who feel at liberty to 
express their religious opinions in the terms of their 
predecessors, we may take it for granted that the 
difficulties and objections of intelligent heathens 
will be more respectfully treated than heretofore. 


MISSIONARY WORK OF THE CHURCH 235 


The art of healing estabhshes respect for itself 
by an immediate demonstration of its utility, and 
medical missions must remain a valuable part of 
the work. Meanwhile, the schools will continue 
to offer congenial opportunity for work. A child 
accepts direct teaching; for he has neither mental 
preoccupation, nor does he demand experimental 
proof. 

Education in the European sense strengthens 
the mind, and brings the young scholar into cor- 
respondence with the thought of the ages. But 
from the missionary point of view the effect of 
European knowledge has not been altogether satis- 
factory. The students do not always grow into 
sympathy with the Church. Perhaps it would be 
unfair to call them hostile, or antipathetic as a 
whole; but many are indifferent, and some openly 
profess Agnosticism. Yet, to refuse general educa- 
tion until Christianity were accepted would imply 
mistrust of religion. In our own case the tradi- 
tional faith of our fathers gives us a kind of sea 
anchorage amidst the intricate channels of doubt. 
We are steadfast by instinct even against intel- 
lectual conviction. But the educated Asiatic has 
no such traditional association, and The Claims of the j 
in the pride of his newly-acquired Asiatic, 
power, turns from the Bible to Herbert Spencer. 
It is the scientific side of our civilisation which 
appeals to the Asiatic, and he is learning to work 
out his own conclusions. Presently the advantage 
which the missionary has possessed over the un- 
trained native will be lost, and India and China 
will shake off our tutelage. The restlessness of 


236 


ORIGINS AND FAITH 


our own Dependency, the awakening of China, 
the emergence of Japan into a world power, the 
stirring of the Nearer East, all speak of some- 
thing deeper than European fashions in dress, or 
the affectation of European manners. For only 
a few centuries separate us from a time when 
Europe took her lessons from Asia. Then was the 
older continent the schoolmaster of the younger, 
in Religion, Science, and Commerce. The Re- 
naissance which put new life into Western Europe 
is beginning to affect the older world. Econom- 
ically the Asiatics are becoming our competitors. 
How far they will go in Religion, Art, and Politics, 
we know not yet. 

It has been urged that it is the duty of the 
Church to concentrate upon these rising nations, 
whose rejuvenated powers, directed in the Christian 
spirit, may be the determinating force of the future. 
Those who so advocate speak slightingly of the 
success which missions have attained in the South 
Seas and Southern Africa. They assert that we 
have looked to quantity more than quahty, and have 
been diverted from the severer field to the ground 
of easier triumph. To these critics the conquest 
of the Eastern world for Christ is of far more 
importance than the transformation of a barbarous 
race of savages into an educated and kindly people. 

There are, however, two aspects in which mission 
work may he approached. The one is a treatment 
Two Aspects of of all non-Christian people as 

Mission Work, standing in like need of conversion; 
the other a discrimination between a religious con- 
dition, which is at any rate a twilight of faith, and 


MISSIONARY WORK OF THE CHURCH 237 


those barbarous perversions of the religious instinct 
which have degraded and oppressed races of man- 
kind through their horrors and obscenities. In the 
one case, we may recognise the Spirit of God work- 
ing for the uplifting of the people; in the other, 
the powers of Evil transforming their holy days 
into a witches’ sabbath. It may be urged on 
stronger ground whether it is not our bounden duty 
first to attack with the weapons of Christianity 
those devil manifestations which fill the dark places 
of the earth with their habitations of cruelty, and 
even where the Christian missionary fails, to invoke 
in such exceptional cases the aid of the secular arm. 
Survivals of such outrages upon the religious in- 
stinct have persisted even in modern India far into 
English rule. Suttee and Juggernaut have had 
to give way; and the British soldier in West Africa 
would be justified in destroying those horrible 
groves of sacrifice which cast the shadow of hell 
upon many a West African village. The wholesale 
massacres of the Old Testament can find some plea 
in the vileness of the religions which they overthrew. 
The murderous sacrifices and bestialities of the 
Pagan East can only be attributed to the perverting 
influences of ancient evil under the garb of religion. 
“ The devil a monk would be.” Such manifesta- 
tions, wherever found, can be properly attacked and 
overthrown in the name of God and humanity. 
But in passing beyond these abominations the 
missionary needs to exercise some care in dealing 
with a Paganism time-honoured. The village idol, 
the focus of the religious sentiment of the district, 
is an object of help and comfort which had better 


ORIGINS AND FAITH 


remain until it can be replaced by the higher faith. 
The reverence and affection felt towards the symbol 
transcend it in a reaching after God Himself. 
Without it the worshippers might have been cast 
into a gross infidelity, having lost all confidence in 
the pity andsympathy of the Unseen. They would 
have been left naked to the misery of the dark 
night, filled with strange sounds, the victims of a 
pitiless nature. For very little, indeed, separates 
reputable, time-honoured Paganism from those 
lower forms of Christianity which give to days and 
seasons, to the rites of the holy places, a peculiar 
sanctity; and that contempt of idolatry is mis- 
placed which measures it by the low degree of art 
practised by the worshippers. The hideous and 
repulsive image may not represent a faith which 
has strayed so far from the holy and beautiful as 
the faith of some who found their deities in the 
Apollo and the Aphrodite of Greek mythology. 
It is not so long since the cruelties of the Inquisi- 
tion, the rack, and the fire, rivalled the human sac- 
rifices to Moloch and to Chemosh in their atrocity. 

But a greater difficulty presents itself in the fluid 
condition of Christian thought at home. The earlier 
Should the age of missions was the great time. 

^ChrisUanrty Then the simplicity of the hearer 
was only paralleled by the simplicity of the 
teacher. To both the Bible was a book from 
heaven, written by the finger of God. It was easy 
to feed the fires of enthusiasm at home, and raise 
the money for missionary enterprise, to snatch 
brands from the burning. But to-day there is not 
only hesitation, but re-statement. How far are we 


MISSIONARY WORK OF THE CHURCH 239 


bound to give modern Christian teaching to the 
heathen? It is a problem with which we are faced 
in the Sunday School at home, and there are races 
still in their childhood to whom our matured and 
critical outlook would be almost unintelligible. 
But the teachings must follow the course adapted 
to the widening intelligence, whether of the child or 
of the community. The folk-lore of the barbarian, 
like the fairy story of the nursery, is at first fully 
accepted, then half befieved, and finally referred 
to that treasure house of adorable fiction to which 
the oldest of us delight at times to resort for make- 
believe. First that which is natural; and after- 
wards that which is spiritual. Besides which, crit- 
icism has by no means finished its work. The 
boundaries of the new thought are not determined, 
and there are differences, some of an acute character, 
waiting to be reconciled. The latest commentary, 
the last sensational publication, grows out of date 
almost before it has been read. We usually ex- 
aggerate before we consolidate. In the tumult of 
war the aggressive forces cover much more ground 
than they are contented to retain under a treaty of 
peace. After a long period of intellectual turbu- 
lence, a period of conservatism will return, and con- 
centration of thought reveal that much of our newer 
philosophy is pure adventure, which in its turn fails 
under further criticism. The teacher must not 
place too great a reliance upon the gentle receptivity 
of the new convert. As a race advances in civilisa- 
tion, with developing intelligence, questions will be 
asked, and answers to them must be supplied. The 
Basutos of South Africa are credited with an ex- 


ORIGINS AND FAITH 


240 

cellent native ministry, particularly attracted to 
metaphysical discussion. Native churches of the 
second generation will demand a Christian experi- 
ence of a wider character. It has reasonably been 
said that the case for Christian missions has to be 
re-stated in the light of a larger hope, a recognition 
of the uncovenanted mercies of God. From other 
directions it is urged that the finer faiths of the 
heathen world are better adapted to their own 
peoples than the creed of Christendom. We are 
reminded that some social customs, like polygamy, 
are by no means repugnant to the moral sense of 
the peoples by whom they are practised, and that 
these races, Avithin their own code, maintain a 
morality comparable with Christian nations. To 
thrust the liigher ideals prematurely upon these 
peoples would dislocate their societies, cause much 
suffering, possibly shock their whole moral feelings. 
Yet Christianity cannot be expected to lower its 
standards to these moral levels. The missionary is 
bound to maintain fidelity to the entire Christian 
teaching. For it would be an impossible attempt 
to revise the ethics of the greater Faith in deference 
to the varying customs of mankind. We must take 
refuge under the direct injunction of the Founder 
of the Faith to preach His gospel to every creature. 
We are not responsible for the results. We are to 
sow the good seed of the kingdom, and then leave 
it to the ravage of the wild bird, to the feet of the 
wayfarer, to the charities of the broad skies. Nor 
can it for a moment be suggested that this indis- 
criminate preaching of the gospel should be left to 
the less intelligent enthusiast of the older evan- 


MISSIONARY WORK OF THE CHURCH 241 


gelicalism. Such counsel would practically reduce 
missionary enterprise to marking time. For we do 
not know whether we ourselves yet fully understand 
the whole meaning of that message. Its influence 
is too subtle. It is incomprehensible, like the 
atmosphere. No other form of faith has reconciled 
to itself so many and divers peoples. The message 
is to be proclaimed right and left, though we see 
no return for our labour. The new thought, de- 
composed, assimilated, will nevertheless perform its 
function. Here is a softening of manner, there a 
growth of altruism, a recognition of the sanctity of 
human hfe, a flash of immortality in the hearts of 
men still obedient to their own creed. We shall 
have discharged our duty whether men hear or 
forbear, but the message must be positive, and as 
little as possible controversial. But let it be milk 
for babes first, and afterwards strong meat. 

The practical question of the moment is how 
to plan the work of the future. It is obvious that 
some agreement amongst the Prot- The work of the 
estant societies would be a great future, 
gain, both in preventing the scandal of friction 
and in economy of power. But this does not settle 
the question of administration. Is it a fact that 
our centralised control from Europe or America 
fails to get the best out of the work, and disheartens 
the workers? Would it be better to create local 
committees, from the workers themselves, who 
should periodically meet together to compare their 
efforts and to determine policy and new lines of 
development? Such a system would not supersede 
general financial supervision, but the committee of 


242 ORIGINS AND FAITH 

the district would know the amount placed at their 
disposal, and would deal with it in as thrifty a 
manner as their local knowledge advised. They 
would then be more directly liable for the results; 
be subjected to periodic inspection from head- 
quarters, and would probably work under a deeper 
sense of responsibility. For the distances are 
troublesome, circumstances are continually chang- 
ing, and the power delegated to a Chinese, Indian, 
or African board might find more effective adminis- 
tration than under the existing system. For the 
missionary at red heat on the platform at home, 
has, in cold blood, to reconsider his work and learn 
adaptation during the long days of his self-imposed 
exile. 

If, however, we are to restore waning enthusiasm, 
to rouse new life and interest in an enterprise which 
is mostly well officered, and upon which much 
labour and intelligence is regularly spent, the 
Church at home must realise an objective of a more 
practical character than any before her at the 
present. The success of the future will depend 
more and more upon native co-operation. It may 
be desirable to educate the first native missioners 
in America or in England ; but beyond schools and 
medical missions there is little to anticipate in the 
way of practical results until we have secured the 
best intelligence of a country on the side of the 
missionary faith. “ By man came death; by man 
comes also the resurrection from the dead.” And 
this is true of every nation, particularly of those 
who learn the lesson at the lips of the leaders of 
their own race. 


CHRISTIANITY IN THE SOCIAL 
ORDER 




XV 


CHRISTIANITY IN THE SOCIAi: 
ORDER 

A lthough Christianity gave no pre- 
scription for a civil government, she recog- 
nised fully the necessity of a state, and 
there are not wanting signs of her own ideal. But 
she acknowledged forces for righteousness outside 
of herself. The hard distinction -phe Church and 
between the Church and world was the World, 
drawn during her escape from the dark ages of 
Paganism. To the early Christians the world was 
an unclean thing, not to be touched, because it was 
fast losing the natural instincts for goodness in 
the frivolities and the devilries of Pagan life. But 
when the Roman world became practically Chris- 
tian, when Evil shrank into dark corners, and the 
ideals of morality at any rate were taken as com- 
monplaces, there was no such sharp difference. 
Good Samaritans were found in plenty beyond 
the limits of the Church, and her membership be- 
came a privileged position rather than an ark of 
refuge from a desolating destruction. It is ques- 
tionable whether the strictly separatist idea of the 
Church in its ethical character has not hindered 
rather than helped in its influence over society. 

There is one great fact which is a standing 
reproach to Christendom — ^that the Church has not 
345 


U6 


ORIGINS AND FAITH 


succeeded in settling disputes between Christian 
nations without a resort to war. Apart from the 
question of morals, war is a scourge of humanity, a 
clumsy method of adjusting differences. It would 
seem strange, indeed, to any onlooker that nations 
professing allegiance to a Prince of Peace should 
be as ready as any barbarous tribe to use brute 
force against other members of the same brother- 
Christianity and hood of Christ. But when we re- 
member that these clashings of 
arms are as often lawless aggression as lawful 
defence, the position becomes still more remarkable. 
Diplomacy and commerce have done far more to 
effect agreements, and avert conflagration than the 
teaching of the Churches. Whenever the interests 
of a great power are at stake, or its honour im- 
pugned, its hand goes instinctively to the sword, 
and the monitions of the churchman are roughly 
dismissed. In fact, the churchman himself fre- 
quently dons the coat of mail, or if he stops short 
of this, appeals to heaven for the success of his 
nation’s arms, and calls upon the Lord of hosts 
to engage in the national quarrel. The only work 
accomplished by Christianity has been a moderating 
influence in the conduct of war, diminishing its 
ferocity by treating the wounded and the van- 
quished with more humane consideration. There 
must be opposing causes at work of a more potent 
character which are able to neutralise the good 
intentions of religious bodies. When the Church 
did attempt to exceed the humble position assigned 
to her, she supported that effort by warlike measures 
of her own. If her weapons were not carnal — and 


CHRISTIANITY IN THE SOCIAL ORDER 247 


she did not always hesitate to use these — they were 
not less powerful because of their ghostly character. 
She would lay a nation under interdict, reduce the 
churches to silence, and send the unshrived dead 
to their doom. But when it was found that policy 
more than peace dictated these actions, they began 
to lose their effect. The fact is that nations, like 
individuals, revolt against extinction, and in order 
to obtain free play for their energies, their natural 
expansion in the world, they are prepared to fight 
for their own hand like any plant or animal, careless 
whether they attain the result at the expense of 
others or not. The law of self-preservation, the 
survival of the fittest, sends a man or a nation 
jostling to the front. Little nations, hke little 
places of business, have a hard time of it between 
the great empires. They keep an eye upon the 
clock of destiny, and when their hour has struck 
make the best terms they can under the inevitable 
process of absorption. But Christianity does not 
ask a man to commit suicide, or to suffer himself 
to be murdered, in the interests of peace. It is 
practically immoral to sacrifice a vigorous though 
small nationahty for the sake of aggrandising some 
overgrown and despotic empire. It is, therefore, 
certain that there are cases in which war, however 
dreadful, must be accepted rather than a peace of 
dishonour. Christianity may do much to palliate, 
but it can only abolish by effecting a change in 
the state systems of the world. However valuable 
arbitration may be in the honourable settlements 
of minor disputes, there are conceivable cases in 
which it might positively work mischief. Behind 


MS 


ORIGINS AND FAITH 


the arbitration stands the force of the associated 
states which have consented to apply that method 
in all disputes. In a case in which a small state 
appeals against an injustice attempted by a power- 
ful neighbour, it is possible that a majority of states, 
judging the cause, might take the side of the 
larger opponent for some motive other than mere 
Dangers of justice. If the Smaller litigant 
Arbitration. would not accept a judgment, 
however unfair, its powerful opponent would have 
the moral influence, if not the actual intervention, 
of the court in its favour, and whereas it might 
hesitate for fear of complications to engage in war 
with its weak adversary, it would not scruple to 
pursue an oppressive course when it had received 
the approval of public opinion. Moreover, no 
antagonists of equal size would wait for the formali- 
ties of arbitration, if either of them considered its 
interests promoted by a sudden attack in an un- 
guarded moment. Nothing but a process of state 
evolution will render it possible for religion to make 
its doctrine of peace effective, unless, indeed, war 
should prove inoperative through an equality of 
opportunity, the overwhelming cost of armaments, 
and the mutual destructiveness of weapons. But 
such a result is unlikely. Any nation that con- 
siders it has secured a temporary advantage through 
numbers, or invention, will be tempted to begin. 

It is significant that the ideal of the New Testa- 
ment is that of a city. Indeed, to the Jew of the 
The City of older Covenant, Jerusalem stood for 
God. the nation, and the new Jerusalem 
was a compacted population guarded by walls, its 


CHRISTIANITY IN THE SOCIAL ORDER 249 


paradise a rus in urhe, a public park. If we could 
imagine the world resolving itself into little states, 
like those of ancient Greece, the multiplication of 
these separate units of government would create a 
world-wide civil society which could be policed and 
controlled by a Council authority elected from the 
whole. In this case we should see established a 
magnified civil government which could mediate 
in quarrels and ultimately decide without the bar- 
barous appeal to arms. In cases of contumacy the 
one military force governing the whole would 
forcibly separate the states at war as two drunken 
ruffians are thrown asunder in a street brawl by 
the pohce of to-day. To those who would cry 
shame upon these perversities of Christendom it 
can only be said that this law of survival is the 
working process through which the divine agency, 
hampered by Evil, produces the highest and best. 
In Scotland, a race for the most part identical in 
its origins with the English has developed into a 
stronger type than the average Southerner, because 
in the running fight with a hostile chmate the 
weaker members of the incoming people were 
thinned out, and the survivors, gradually inured, 
produced in their turn children strong enough to 
prosper under the rigours of atmosphere. 

The same principle applies to those economic 
struggles which in their issues are sometimes as 
fatal as physical contests. The Economic 
insufficient food, the slow starva- Warfare, 
tion, the lack of defence against the cold, the con- 
stant anxiety as to the provision for to-morrow, 
take a heavier toll than the battlefield itself. As 


250 


ORIGINS AND FAITH 


in the case of war, Christianity has done not a little 
to soften and to reheve the situation. She builds 
palaces for the fatherless and the afflicted. She 
has never ceased to distribute bread to the hungry. 
The monastery of the Middle Ages had an open 
door to the poor, and the bulk of the philanthropy 
of to-day is the regular contribution from the mem- 
bership of Christian Churches. But the problems 
are still waiting to be solved. The world is asking 
itself whether poverty ought to exist, whether there 
is a better substitute for an incentive to industry 
than a slough of despond running alongside the 
road of the worker in which at any moment a false 
step may plunge him. What should be the attitude 
of the Church to questions of this kind? Is it in 
fact her duty to interfere, or if so, where is to be 
drawn the limit of that interference? For unless 
she has a message to deliver, illumination to give, 
she may easily aggravate the situation instead of 
improving it. For the time her supernatural gifts 
appear to be dormant. It is not from her that 
the world has derived those scientific discoveries 
which have rendered life so much more efficient, 
or that increase in medical and surgical knowledge 
which has made our homes healthier and lengthened 
our lives. If she has no special injunction to help 
and to heal, it is not to her that we can look for 
direct assistance. Not as churchmen, but as citi- 
zens must we set to work upon the task. But she 
has a right to ask the State to maintain conditions 
which will obtain for her a fair hearing. Men and 
women habitually below the poverty line are not 
only a burden to the community; they are often a 


CHRISTIANITY IN THE SOCIAL ORDER 251 

moral danger. The struggle for existence exhausts 
all the powers of the individual, destroys idealism, 
and reduces him to the level of the beast with which 
he formerly disputed for the fruits of the earth. A 
large population habitually short of bread is a re- 
proach as well as a danger to the State. Yet for 
the Church to act emotionally and impulsively in 
the prescription of remedies might only entail 
greater evils, and a false step would have to be 
retraced at much cost and disappointment. Where 
a community in numbers represents about the food- 
producing capacity of the country it inhabits, the 
problem is more simple than that of a country hke 
Great Britain, carrying on a vast foreign trade, 
subject to fluctuation beyond control. There is 
no accurate means of determining whether a State 
system of production and distribution could be 
successfully conducted in competition with other 
States working on individualist principles in the 
markets of the world. We can only approach the 
truth by cautious experiment. Assuming again 
the right of every man to regular employment at 
such a return for his labour as would provide him 
with decent support and reasonable leisure, we have 
yet to And whether any State system could extract 
from the worker the full measure of his powers, 
when the ordinary incentives to work had been 
superseded by an assured provision. And, indeed, 
it is difficult to say whether the worker himself 
would be conscious of the difference, so subtle is 
the relaxation of mind which lack of incentive in- 
duces. Yet this margin of energy probably means 
the maintenance of a commercial position. 


252 


ORIGINS AND FAITH 


There are in fact two questions often confused 
though distinct enough in reality: whether the 
penalties of poverty cannot be averted by the appli- 
cation of State co-operation within definite limits, 
or whether a revolutionary proposal of State social- 
ism in production and distribution is the one and 
only cure. And it is a further question whether the 
cost of such provision should not fall chiefly, if not 
entirelj^ upon the superabundantly wealthy of the 
community. If the increase of population should 
render such an arrangement too burdensome, or for 
other reasons a redistribution of population become 
necessary, then a wisely directed State-assisted 
emigration appears to be the judicious alternative. 
For a State cannot wait for the maturing of rev- 
olutionary measures if it has to meet a current and 
growing evil. There are other parts of the question 
which offer minor solutions, such as the insurance 
against unemployment by employers and employed, 
not to speak of those who profit by them, in those 
trades which are regularly subjected to fluctuations, 
but which on the whole give an average remunera- 
tion sufficient to all concerned if evenly distributed. 

The complexity of these problems renders it 
almost impossible for a Christian community to 
give a spiritual blessing to one or other of these 
competing solutions to the exclusion of the rest. 
The Church has a right to point to her long history 
of charity, and, in spite of many errors, to maintain 
that she has done her Master’s work, has stood 
between the oppressor and the oppressed, between 
the living and the dead. When both sides of the 
account are cast, the balance will show a large 


CHRISTIANITY IN THE SOCIAL ORDER 25S 

amount of good to her credit. To expect her to 
extemporise in the course of a few years a system 
which will enable mankind to hve idyllicly in a 
world at variance with itself is to ask a miracle, 
indeed, greater than any we dare attribute to the 
Maker of us all. 

Then it may be asked: Does the Christian Church 
propose to do nothing, to stand aside and see the 
old struggle of race with race, the can the Church 
death- throes of one nation, the tri- intervene? 
umph of another in the close grapple for suprem- 
acy? Cannot the Slav come into his inheritance 
without trying a fall with the Teuton? Is France 
to watch with anxious eyes for that crucial moment 
in which Germany shall become involved in Euro- 
pean strife in order that she may spring like a 
panther upon her and worry back her lost prov- 
inces? Is the Church helpless to mark the rise of 
new empires in the East, the superabundant popu- 
lation of China pouring into fresh channels, the 
birth of a Continental spirit which may lead to 
the embattlement of Asia against Europe? Or 
is her only remedy that of fresh alliances which may 
keep a sullen peace but will not relieve the democ- 
racy from the weight of armament? Does she 
realise that the sense of Christian comradeship has 
so far become lost that a Pagan and Christian state 
may enter into the most intimate combination 
against other Christian states, and do so without 
any sense of impropriety or, indeed, without any 
practical reason to set against it? On turning to 
the industrial world has the Church nothing to say 
to the grinding out of those economic processes 


S54 


ORIGINS AND FAITH 


which tend to concentrate more power in the hands 
of the few and to give the great mass of the popula- 
tion fewer masters indeed, but possibly harder task- 
masters? To all this the Church may have to 
confess some failure, but she can show a better case 
than her accusers, prone to exaggeration, care to 
admit. If the world were a mere battlefield of 
man against natural forces with which we had only 
to become acquainted in order to control and direct 
to useful ends, then there might be some reproach 
against the slowness of the rate of progress. But 
if our theory be the correct one, there are activities 
constantly at work to thwart and pervert the nobler 
purposes of life. Ground already covered is con- 
stantly lost again, and the human material through 
which the reforms have to be accomphshed is most 
uncertain in quality and conduct. Those who taunt 
the Church with her neglect of the fallen conve- 
niently forget how largely many of them have con- 
tributed to their own disasters. The sea bottom 
of life is strewn with the wrecks of ships once well- 
found, the debris of former activities, the corpses 
of men. We may deplore these results, but we 
should not idealise them. If our failure lies full 
fathom five, it is not often that the processes of 
transmutation convert the bones into corals and the 
eyes into pearls. It is to the bottom of society 
that the wreck from every other class determines. 
The assumption, therefore, that we have an average 
amount of co-operation in those below the poverty 
line is known to be incorrect. Now and again 
nothing more can be done. If the individual will 
not work he must go under, even though it involves 


CHRISTIANITY IN THE SOCIAL ORDER 255 


moral suicide. But your neighbour, fallen amongst 
thieves, however wounded and helpless, bereft of 
clothing and energies, is the victim of your eco- 
nomic system, we are told. Why do the leaders of 
the Church, the strength and support of every good 
institution, become pirates when they enter the 
commercial world? The man who gives freely to 
the offertory, and is piling up a great business, must 
know that he is doing this at the expense of many 
smaller traders who are not possessed of the same 
capital and capacity. Yes, if he goes to work de- 
hberately to ruin a neighbour, killing out competi- 
tion by violent processes and recouping himself 
for the loss by obtaining higher prices from the pub- 
lic later, he is guilty of inconsistency. But there is 
another side to the question. Who is my neigh- 
bour? Is he the man in the adjoining business who 
has been making a fortune out of easy markets for 
many past years, and who has grown as supine in 
his methods as he is prosperous in his circumstances? 
Is he to continue in his antiquated course, indiffer- 
ent to improvement, but resentful of competition? 
Or is my neighbour that greater number who will 
obtain a better article at a lower rate from the new- 
comer with his improved methods and his large 
returns? Is it the one man or the many who are to 
profit? Manifestly the community gains by the 
larger ideas and the reduction of cost so long as 
the innovation does not finish in a monopoly. 
Would this be a case in which a religious body ought 
to prematurely intervene? Necessity still remains 
the mother of invention, and, though the old grand 
dame has gone out of favour of late, her children 


256 


ORIGINS AND FAITH 


continue to rise up and call her blessed. The limits 
of Individualism and Collectivism are not yet deter- 
mined, and whilst their adjustment still remains a 
matter for discussion and experiment, it would be 
unwise for any judicous onlooker to take sides. 
But there is no reason why differences between 
employers and employed, of class and class, should 
be fought out to the bitter end in the cockpit of 
competition. The spirit of Christianity at any 
rate dissipates wrath, invites cooler thought, and 
preaches brotherhood and concession. The whole 
economic question resolves itself into a determina- 
tion of the respective shares of capital, management, 
and labour, in the profits of an undertaking, and the 
need of the moment is a less clumsy method of de- 
termining those shares than the rough processes 
hitherto adopted. Generally they are governed by 
those economic law;s which it is impossible to ignore 
— the supply and willingness of labour on the one 
side; the supply and willingness of capital on the 
other. It is the inequalities in this distribution 
which obscure the question and render its solution 
so difficult. If the amount of able-bodied labour 
could be ascertained, with its average wage on the 
one hand, and the total amount of capital employed, 
with the return obtained for its use, on the other, 
there would be the means for ascertaining the actual 
proportions in which each shared in the general 
fund. At the present time attention is diverted to 
the extremes on both sides. Miserable wages and 
unemployment attract attention, as do also huge 
profits and accumulated wealth. But the real ques- 
tion is. What profit is there to be distributed be- 


CHRISTIANITY IN THE SOCIAL ORDER 257 


tween the several parties, and would that profit be 
augmented or diminished by a change in our eco- 
nomic system? It would probably be found that the 
margin for distribution between labour and capital 
is smaller than is imagined, because the average 
would be considerably reduced by the diminished 
returns and actual losses of the lean years. There 
are not only the positive bankruptcies to be taken 
into account, but the sweating of capital through 
trade losses which do not come to light, because 
the business ultimately survives either by drawing 
upon the reserves of its owners or through the for- 
bearance of its creditors. When this return was 
ascertained it would be easier to say whether labour 
had participated to the extent that it ought. We 
must bear in mind the fact that the wage-sheet is 
a regular first charge upon the business whether 
money be made or not, and that it rarely happens 
that the workers suffer the loss of their stipulated 
wage until the actual closing of the works. It can 
hardly be said that competition is the cause of a 
lessened margin of profit, as it results in unneces- 
sary production, because in prosperous years the 
production is rarely in excess of market require- 
ments, and when the work is diminished in volume 
the workers would decrease proportionately in num- 
ber. So far as this can be averted through the 
strenuousness of competition it is a good and not 
an evil for the workers. In the first case, those 
who fall below the poverty line will come under 
State supervision, and in return will have to sub- 
mit to a restriction of their liberty. Laziness must 
necessarily be penalised, and every encouragement 


258 


ORIGINS AND FAITH 


and assistance given to the restoration of the tem- 
porarily crippled to the ranks of the able-bodied 
and efficient, with the consequent privileges of 
Individualism. 

If the Church denounces a state of things which 
by the popular tongue is called a disgrace to a 
What can be Christian nation, she is required to 
done ? contribute moral force and ingenu- 
ity to a solution of the difficulty. The older re- 
ligions did not advocate the preservation of maimed 
and inefficient lives. They regarded such as in- 
cumbrances, wretches cursed by the gods, to whom 
earth only gave temporary shelter. But the me- 
thodical benevolence of the later centuries promises 
to transfer from private charity to State duty the 
hospitals, refuges, and orphanages. A crippled life 
will not continue to be a burden to its family, but 
will be sheltered and prolonged at the expense of the 
community. Human feeling, once the luxury of 
the few, will become the virtue of a nation in its 
corporate capacity. That which has been imper- 
fectly attempted will be completely accomplished. 
The niggardly and uncharitable will be forced to 
bear their share of the burden, and the money de- 
voted to those purposes will be released for other 
philanthropic objects. For this, Christianity is 
distinctly responsible. She has set a moral value 
upon human life and has stimulated the sense of 
brotherhood. But the principle of State interven- 
tion in the unprotected areas of the nation is meet- 
ing with natural opposition. We are warned that 
help rendered to the child is a release of the natural 
responsibility of the parent, and that the time and 


CHRISTIANITY IN THE SOCIAL ORDER J259 


money so saved will be diverted to unworthy pur- 
poses. But even if the cost of the child culture 
cannot be collected in part from the parents, we 
must remember that the result of neglect is paid 
by the children. A child ill-nurtured, imperfectly 
clad, half-taught, turned upon the cold mercies of 
the street, must eventually become a charge upon 
the community in some form or other. We have 
already taken too considerable a step in the direc- 
tion of interference with labour to flinch from the 
natural corollary. We regulate hours of work, 
and the conditions under which that work shall take 
place in factory and mine. We have made provision 
for old age and given compensation for injuries. 
We are, therefore, in order, when we equip the 
youth of the nation for its future duties as when we 
solace the last days of life. We ought even to an- 
ticipate the coming of the child. Motherhood is a 
martyrdom on behalf of the race sufficiently heavy 
without poverty and anxiety being added to it. 
Places of rest for women for a few weeks before 
and after childbirth would greatly diminish suffer- 
ing, and give a first start to the young child. At 
great cost we have given free education to the chil- 
dren of the poor, but such education will fail in its 
object unless the little mind is in a fit condition to 
deal with the daily lesson. Costly wireless mes- 
sages are of no use without corresponding receivers. 
Children sent to school, unfed, in sodden clothes, 
only set to work with benumbed faculties. They 
can be fed properly and cheaply in large numbers 
at a much lower cost than individually in the houses 
of the poor. Dry boots and a change of outer gar- 


260 


ORIGINS AND FAITH 


merits are almost as much a necessity as the stomach 
full of food. But the clothing could be retained 
for school purposes unless purchased by the parent. 
Children so cared for in body and mind, medically 
supervised, and started in life, have a duty to the 
State. Failing the competence of the parent to 
control or direct them, it has a right to draft them 
into domestic service, factory work, the army or the 
navy, instead of permitting them to grow into a 
permanent charge on the prisons and workhouses 
of the country. Education has something better to 
do than to produce a refined edition of ruffianism, 
or to improve the vocabulary of a street brawl. 
But with the falling birth-rate, every child has an 
increased value, even in a closely-populated coun- 
try like England. It is only in the event of a 
permanent transfer of industry from one country to 
another, either through the exhaustion of its natural 
fuel or the loss of foreign markets, that the burden 
of over-population would be permanently felt. 
This must be relieved in thickly-populated areas 
by State-aided emigration unless, indeed. Science 
steps in and considerably increases the fertility of 
long cultivated soils. When a system of State in- 
surance against sickness or other causes of unem- 
ployment has been adopted, and wealthy industries 
have made local provision for their own member- 
ship, we shall have made an impression upon the 
problem of property, particularly as the very young 
and old will have largely been eliminated from con- 
sideration. Something will always remain for the 
State to provide and for private charity to recog- 
nise. But the ground will have been cleared for the 


CHRISTIANITY IN THE SOCIAL ORDER 261 


political discussion of the advantages of State so- 
cialism or individualist competition, with which the 
Church has no cause to interfere. 

There is, however, a social world little affected by 
legislation, in which the Church’s influence is more 
instantly demanded. She must recognise that the 
greater part of the nation has to find amusement 
and relaxation from the severe conditions of toil in 
a Northern climate. She properly declaims against 
the delusions of drink, but the starved imagina- 
tion must have some alternative. Recreation is well 
enough in its way and may suffice for some, but 
there are conditions of mind and body too jaded for 
further demands upon them of an athletic and 
intellectual character; and such plead to be simply 
amused. Her course is surely not to condemn and 
deny but to purify the worst and popularise the 
best. She must either offer an alternative herself 
to psalms, and hymns, and spiritual songs, or must 
strive to create a wholesome public opinion which 
will demand healthy and decent entertainment. 
The grace of God does not destroy appreciation of 
music or blunt the dramatic instinct in a man or a 
woman. Similarly she has a duty to the young peo- 
ple in the large centres of population. The human 
passions need to be directed into right channels, 
pent within safe barriers, neither ignored nor suf- 
fered to run loose. Can she not realise how much 
more good is to be done by opening church parlours 
in which the young of both sexes may enjoy natural 
association with each other, having set before them 
the ideal of an early marriage rather than building 
rescue homes or enforcing — as she is also right in 


ORIGINS AND FAITH 


doing — ^the observance of public decency? Com- 
plex civilisation has brought with it many evils 
which the personal sympathetic service of good men 
and women is daily required to abate. The ministry 
of the Church should break the bounds of a profes- 
sional class and of a particular day. The Church 
has been commanded to be the city set on the hill. 
However limited her present membership may have 
become, she has still the power resident within her 
to raise the temperature of every neighbourhood in 
which she gathers her little flock, and to make it 
better for men and women who never enter her 
gates that a witness to a living Christ has been sent 
amongst them. 


SOME CRITICISMS AND A 
CONCLUSION 


k 


9 


•( 



XVI 


SOME ‘CRITICISMS AND A 
CONCLUSION 

W E may anticipate that the working theory 
of Christianity presented in the fore- 
going pages will be assailed from more 
sides than one. It is at variance with that philo- 
sophic interpretation of rehgion which is most in 
favour. The fashionable Monism of the day at- 
tracts by cleanness of definition. For it not only 
follows Science by the resolution of all matter into 
one primal substance, but it assumes one spiritual 
force to which it credits the origin of spirit and 
matter alike, and presumes its intelligent direction. 
This is a step further back than that older Monism 
which adopted underlying substance as the single 
cause of both spirit and matter, a substance which 
only found its consciousness in the intelligent re- 
sults of its evolutionary processes. Our desire to 
rest upon a single First Cause is due to a sense of 
fitness and symmetry, and we are tempted to dis- 
miss the idea of causes many and unknown as a 
ragged and unscientific method of determining the 
beginnings. This desire, however, belongs more to 
the range of sentiment than of reason. It is doubt- 
ful whether Science will ever reduce all life to 
one original substance. It is quite as possible 
that she may be barred in her inquiry by several 
265 ^ 


266 


ORIGINS AND FAITH 


primals, that the gaseous condition from which life 
has emerged consists of more than one irreducible 
constituent. Perfect symmetry is seldom realised 
in nature and must be referred to the domain of the 
ideal. The orbits of suns and planets suffer aberra- 
tion, and apparently do not complete their courses 
with such precision as to suggest a standard of 
perfection to which they are bound to attain. The 
very globe upon which we live is only a tolerable 
sphere, flattened at the poles, with bulging pecu- 
liarities suspiciously like an ill-used football. The 
human mind, impatient of indefinite extension, 
seeks finality, a foundation of all existence, in a 
Being self-contained, of infinite resource. But in 
the same way the founder of a pyramid, or the 
builder of a cathedral, carries down his foundation 
through quaking sand until he has reached a con- 
solidated bottom. Then he congratulates himself 
that he is able to construct something to compete 
with eternity. But the solidity is a delusion. He 
is resting upon that slender rind of earth’s surface 
upon which humanity finds itself. A little below 
there are abysses, potentialities of ruin, the elements 
of the most disastrous catastrophe. The building 
site is only a provisional one, and may become in- 
volved in a line of earthquake disturbance which 
carries its streak of ruin across a continent. An 
infinite extension of space, a never-ceasing pro- 
longation of time, transcend our consciousness. 
We are bound to admit, however, that such a condi- 
tion must exist, though beyond the range of human 
conception. 

A Being complete in personal attributes, the 


SOME CRITICISMS AND A CONCLUSION 267 

Author of our ordered universe, does come entirely 
within the zone of our understanding. For as He 
cannot be at once comprehensible and incompre- 
hensible, He is, therefore, bound to exist within, 
and not without, that universe of which we have 
knowledge. And as one personality cannot com- 
prehend the whole of existence, there must needs be 
more personalities than one beyond the reach of our 
cognisance; so that pluralism is a more rational 
basis of existence than monotheism. 

There is nothing in this argument inconsistent 
with the teaching of Scripture. The larger con- 
ditions of life were entirely unknown to the sacred 
writers, and the divine thought worked for them 
through their own experience and consciousness of 
the processes of life. The utmost glory which they 
attribute to His supreme power fell far short 
of His true magnificence as we know it. They 
personified Him as their Ruler and Friend. To 
them, however, there was a mystery about Him be- 
fore which they stood awed and silent. His way 
was in the sea. His pathway in the great waters; 
His footsteps were not known. They were vividly 
conscious of these powers of Evil which intruded 
themselves from without, crossing their path, inter- 
rupting their service. They personified them also 
but did not attempt to reconcile their existence with 
the greatness and goodness of the One to Whom 
they acknowledge allegiance. They agreed that 
time and opportunity were required in the develop- 
ment of mankind and the perfecting of the world, 
though they had not yet filled the gap in the sen- 
tence : “ He spake . . . and it was done. He com- 


268 


ORIGINS AND FAITH 


manded . . . and it stood fast.” That gap has 
been filled by our modem discovery of Evolu- 
tion. 

How far will this recognition of the limited 
nature of God affect Christianity, morally and 
spiritually? It will replace the uncertainty with 
which we have regarded some of the actions of the 
supreme Being by a renewed confidence in the 
unshaken character of His goodness. The doctrine 
of a universal benevolence has been carried to dan- 
gerous lengths since its recent adoption into modem 
religious thought. Retributive punishment has 
faded into the background and has been replaced by 
an invertebrate impression that everything must 
come right at the last. If God be a Father Who 
pities us in our lost condition. He will find it im- 
possible to leave us in outer darkness for ever. He 
is able to save unto the uttermost, and therefore 
when we realise the mistakes that we have made in 
this life and come to ourselves in an after world, 
there must arrive that restitution of all things which 
will bring every errant spirit home. Such confi- 
dence in a divine benevolence, combined with an in- 
exhaustible power, encourages us to pray almost 
like the broad-minded Scotch elder “ for Thy puir 
auld servant the devil.” The remorse of an awak- 
ened soul will be the severest suffering which could 
come to us in course of time, a fire that is never 
quenched until we are restored to the company and 
favour of our divine Benefactor. Such a doctrine, 
atmospherically present in the Church, even where 
it has not been definitely taught, is answerable for 
a great deal of indifference to Christian teaching 


SOME CRITICISMS AND A CONCLUSION 269 


and enervation of character. But if it be discovered 
that the older evangehcal creed was more right in its 
conclusions than in the accuracy of methods of ar- 
riving at them, this period of transitional indiffer- 
ence will give way under the appeal of new realities. 
We shall then find that we have not to suffer an 
inexorable Judgnient from whose severity there is 
no escape, nor to resign ourselves to an unfailing 
Compassion which will reprieve our sentence at the 
last. The God with Whom we have to do will then 
appear to us inflexibly just, as unutterably merci- 
ful as heretofore. His willingness to save remains 
unimpaired, but we shall find to our terror that it 
is possible for us to get beyond His capacity. If 
this be accepted and heartily believed with what 
force will the doctrine of eternal punishment be 
pressed home; a punishment which is only realised 
by those who, falhng out of grace, have become 
thereby estranged from goodness, and are trans- 
formed into that very evil thing they once ab- 
horred. 

With this limitation to the divine power any 
theory of Redemption must go which implies a 
vindication or satisfaction offered to God for sin. 
Our salvation can only consist in a closer associa- 
tion with Him, an at-one-ment which gathers our 
spirits into His purposes, and finds us safety in the 
covert of His wings. 

Until His victory over Evil has been accom- 
plished, we have still to speak of a day of grace, a 
time of salvation. But it is not for us to draw the 
line, to determine these times and seasons. We 
could conceive that the crisis might be reached in 


270 


ORIGINS AND FAITH 


this world, or in other cases be delayed to another 
state of existence. It is not for us to determine 
when those “ dead in trespasses and sins ’’ become 
irretrievably so, beyond the quickening power of 
divine life; but when such a condition arrives we 
may be sure that the narcotised soul can then no 
longer respond to impulses of good, that it is un- 
forgiveable because insusceptible. Thus the gospel 
of the grace of God passes from a phrase into a fact 
of tremendous reality. 

These basal conclusions do not directly concern 
the differences between the Catholic and Reformed 
Churches, using those definitions in their broadest 
sense. The authority of a church or of an inward 
illumination may both be built upon them with 
equal security. Nor does a careful and regulated 
theory of the person of Jesus conflict in practice 
with the relationship of Christ either to the indi- 
vidual believer or to His Church. The modern 
tendency to distinguish between the human Jesus 
and the eternal Christ presses upon us the demand 
for a definition. But if we change the aspect of 
interpretation, and see that God was in Christ, we 
at once escape from these difficulties. We may 
accept a revelation of Godhead, unique, complete 
in itself, without parallel in human experience. 
Thus the Eternal Sonship, finding expression in 
Jesus of Nazareth, becomes a fact in humanity, a 
manifestation of God peculiar to itself, not neces- 
sarily shared by any other part of the universe. 
But, as a matter of fact, it is not the doctrine of 
the person of Christ as an abstract problem which 
determines the teaching of Christianity, but our 


SOME CRITICISMS AND A CONCLUSION 271 


own relationship to God through Him. Both in 
Catholic and Evangelical doctrine there is an ac- 
knowledgment of an objective offering, but in 
neither of these schools of thought does that offer- 
ing suffice standing alone. In Catholic teaching it 
becomes operative in the sacrifice of the Mass by 
physically appropriating the divine life present in 
the consecrated elements. The Evangehcal teach- 
ing minimises the physical process, but lays greater 
stress upon the spiritual assimilation of the nature 
of Christ, and recognises in the act of conversion 
once for all the chief and necessary participation in 
His life. In both these cases repentance and ac- 
ceptance of Christ are required. But in the first 
case the mechanism of the Mass comes between the 
one objective fact of Christ’s death and the partici- 
pation of the believer in its merits. 

It may also be concluded that the cosmic char- 
acter of the continuous redemptive act does not 
affect in any wise the real importance of its assimila- 
tion by the soul. Whether the sacrifice was offered 
upon Calvary, or is of vastly larger dimension, we 
are bidden by Christianity to receive it through the 
spiritual presence of Christ, and can so receive it 
under this larger and more comprehensive theory. 
For other reasons we may divide ourselves into 
Catholic and Protestant, churchmen Established or 
Free; these are not matters of the same vital im- 
portance. Again we are saved from the friction 
which has followed the necessary incorporation of 
scientific conclusions into current unbeliefs. So far 
from a system of Evolution driving God out of His 
universe, it becomes only a reasonable method of 


272 


ORIGINS AND FAITH 


constitutional progress under an intelligent but re- 
stricted direction of life. We shall, now, therefore, 
be in a position to regard with equanimity every 
new suggestion, leaving rival theories to struggle 
with one another in the arenas of Philosophy and 
Science, prepared with smiling faces to welcome the 
victor and crown him with flowers. 

We are not at hberty to put aside a working 
hypothesis of life merely because it confounds some 
of our preconceptions. For these obvious conclu- 
sions, in more inchoate form, have been moving at 
the back of many a righteous mind of the past. 
Some necessity or fate just emerging out of the 
gross darkness has been the hardly uttered guess of 
a thinker. To leave such a shape flitting in the 
twilight is not only undesirable but dangerous. To 
face the problem in its crudest form is better than 
to leave it perpetually undetermined. 

If it be urged that this is at best only a specu- 
lative hypothesis, it must be said in reply that so is 
every other theory of the beginnings, not less in 
Christianity than in others. We can only, there- 
fore, test the value of the hypothesis by its deductive 
results. If any theory of Christianity based upon 
the assumption of an all-powerful, an all-righteous, 
personal Deity, the self-existent First Cause, pre- 
sented no serious difficulties, then we should be 
justifled in holding it against any intruding sug- 
gestion which disturbed, while it did not offer a 
better solution. But an explanation which does not 
affect our reverence, and yet increases our affection 
and confldence in the supreme Creator of the uni- 
verse, can never be dismissed as a mere speculative 


SOME CRITICISMS AND A CONCLUSION 273 


innovation. They only can so treat it who have 
never troubled themselves to trace the effect of 
modern Science upon religious belief, and who re- 
gard the particular creed in which they have been 
educated as a “ judged fact,” requiring no further 
attention on their part. To such minds the neces- 
sity for reconsideration constitutes a heresy in itself, 
and the voice that disturbes their traditional ideas 
must come from a rash iconoclast httle better than 
an infidel. But such critics, if so they may be called, 
however numerous, can be left alone. They will 
range themselves in due time and accept fresh 
thought when it has become the fashion, defending 
the reconstructed faith with more fervour than the 
reformers themselves. But while the reformation 
is in process they would shout down a Christ, and 
hand a Luther over to the secular arm. 

Have the prophets of Naturalism anything better 
to say? Whilst they would probably do us the 
justice to admit that our position is argumenta- 
tively possible, they would remind us that it is 
much easier as well as wiser to retire upon the 
Agnostic position and to confine our acceptance to 
such conclusions as can be demonstrated to the 
human reason. We are not thereby precluded from 
receiving fresh instalments of knowledge. The un- 
known track lying before us is full of hope and sug- 
gestion. We shall be assured that Science inspires 
her disciples with ideals as lofty and stimulating as 
any which the spiritual and moral spheres can pre- 
sent. If there is a personal Being of such endow- 
ments as we assume, sooner or later we must come 
upon Him in His universe. Does He intend us 


274 


ORIGINS AND FAITH 


to anticipate a discovery for which He has probably 
made provision of time and opportunity? Has it 
not been proved in the past that intuitions and de- 
ductions astray from the natural reason have proved 
unworthy of credence, and have been discarded by 
thoughtful people? If we are endowed with the 
power of reason, the sense of proportion, the gift of 
discrimination, surely it is in order that we may walk 
by sight and not by any untested faith. To this we 
reply that we are neither indifferent to the immense 
possibilities of natural Science, nor to the sugges- 
tion that we may ultimately come into contact with 
such facts as will reassure us as to the existence of a 
personal God. But there is no need to sacrifice 
one set of ideals in order to retain the other. We 
would ask our critic whether he maintains seriously 
that the world would be better, deprived of the 
hypotheses of faith, stripped of its religious ideals, 
bereft of its hopes of the future. Has there been 
offered anything which could take their place? 
That they have been perverted, materialised, ineffi- 
cient, cannot be denied by anyone who turns the 
pages of history; but the most crushing analysis will 
find such gold amidst the quartz as nothing else 
has produced in human experience. To deprive the 
world of this would indeed be a heavy responsibility, 
and we believe that the scientist, agnostic though 
he be, would in his heart prefer that these amiable 
delusions should continue until it was certain that 
religion on Positivist lines could take its place. 
That is not yet so; and hence, at the very least, 
there is ground for reprieve. But it is a much 
stronger case than this. It is impossible to deny 


SOME CRITICISMS AND A CONCLUSION 275 


that there are signs of unity and purpose in the 
development of the universe. The fitness and 
beauty, so largely revealed through it, implies a 
sympathy with such high qualities in the plans of 
the Disposer, and it is making a considerable draft 
upon our credulity to suggest that an intelligent 
Being, capable of ordering and appreciating the 
highest and best as we know it, could remain un- 
moved at the individual cost at which such produc- 
tion is attained, or at the abysses which contra- 
distinguish the heights of goodness. Such a Being 
would be indeed incomprehensible if He was at 
once desirous of good and indifferent to evil: and 
so great a complexity of ideals becomes almost un- 
thinkable. If the scientist adds that this God may 
be only a force or power, yet dimly conscious of 
Himself, not realising these differences which are 
so apparent to us, then we ask him whether he is 
prepared to maintain that the co-ordinating intelli- 
gence of the universe is less sensitive to discrimina- 
tion than ourselves, and that we, stranded on our 
lonely islet in space, have the leadership in rational 
and moral faculties. Such an assumption is far less 
credible than our own, and we need not trouble to 
follow him upon that road. If he adopts the Wis- 
dom and Intelligence, then there is a disturbing 
necessity in the order of life, crossing the purposes 
of God, a conclusion that practically coincides with 
our own. 

We are not forgetful of the fact that, whilst much 
remains to be won, much has already been accom- 
plished. We have good reason to believe that the 
cosmic forces, mobilised on behalf of the divine 


276 


ORIGINS AND FAITH 


ideal, are steadily gaining ground. The stars in 
their courses are fighting the intruder, and victory, 
when it is ripe, will bring with it sudden emancipa- 
tion. But “ of that day and of that hour knoweth 
no man.” 




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